Opener Day

Many years ago I remember thinking that a team ought to try a 3-3-3 approach. Get three guys to throw three innings apiece. Heck, you could have three sets of those guys on your staff and pitch every other game that way. Anyway, it was a notion no one took seriously and that’s probably good.

Despite the disappearance of the complete game every team still wants a rotation of five Max Scherzers. Of course there is only one of him and maybe a handful of guys just as good as him. There aren’t 150, that’s for sure. Thus we have killer bullpens and five-inning starters. The so-called “opener” has come to the fore and teams are giving it a try. Why not? If you have LOOGYs why can’t you have openers?

Is it a gimmick? Will it wind up in the dustbin of baseball history? Maybe. But teams are playing baseball RIGHT NOW and they need to win ballgames RIGHT NOW. We can worry about the history books later. I say do what works. If the opener gives the Giants a better chance to win then what’s the problem?

Nick Vincent gets the call today against Toronto. No, this outing is not a referendum on the new-school, analytics-driven baseball of the 21st century. It’s one game. It’s not going to make or break Farhan Zaidi’s tenure as PoBO. But it does say something, and it’s pretty simple: do what you have to do to win. Get the best matchups for your players. I appreciate that Mr. Old School Himself, Bruce Bochy, is smart and adaptable and willing to risk opprobium in order to try to make the team better. If a guy like Boch can embrace the opener, shouldn’t we all?

GO GIANTS!

–M.C.