The World's Worst Sports Blog

It was the best of pitching; it was the worst of pitching. April 8, 2015

I’ll be honest. This was scheduled to be a ridiculous gushing post about Madison Bumgarner completing a totally meaningless milestone. After finishing the final game of the World Series and earning a save¹, he pitched seven innings to open the season for the Giants this season. That means Madison threw twelve consecutive innings, which sounded pretty impressive.

Unfortunately for Madison, the 2003 version of Josh Beckett did it better. He pitched a complete game to clinch the World Series for Florida and then opened the 2004 season with seven innings of one-run ball.Fortunately, Mat Latos bravely crumbled during last night’s game to provide the sports blogging community with material. Mat was knocked out of the box after only two outs, having given up a respectable seven runs before getting the hook. According to Baseball-Reference, no pitcher has lasted less than one full inning on opening day since 1982.

Latos is, however, in good company with his season-starting ERA of 94.50. Jose Contreras started on Opening Day for Chicago in 2007 and lasted only one inning, giving up 7 runs; Carl Pavano did the same in 2009 for Cleveland, giving up 9 runs in the process. Both salvaged their seasons respectably, but – and this is my Mets homer bias coming out – let’s hope Latos is remarkably consistent this year.

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¹ This was the right call by the official scorer, but I really wish he’d declared Jeremy Affeldt “ineffective in a brief appearance” to give Mad Bum the win. Yes, I can call 2 1/3 innings of one-hit, no-run ball during which the Giants took the lead they never relinquished both “ineffective” and “brief,” compared to Bumgarner’s five-inning save.