Tonight we begin our annual tradition of waiting to see the second Opening Day hitter in Major League Baseball history.
The Cleveland Indians’ Bob Feller threw an Opening Day no-no on April 16, 1940, using his “heater from Van Meter” fastball to mow down eight White Sox batters as Cleveland topped Chicago 1-0. Feller’s parents and sister, Marguerite, were among the 14,000 fans at Chicago’s Comiskey Park that afternoon.
Nobody has done it since, and four starting pitchers tonight and 26 tomorrow make their bids to duplicate history. Of course in this era of conservative pitch counts, we could eventually see the first combined Opening Day no-hitter. And if it happens this year, it will by far be the latest Opening Day no-hitter by date in history. Here’s the lineup:
Tonight
- New York Yankees – Gerrit Cole
- Washington Nationals – Max Scherzer
- San Francisco Giants – Johnny Cueto
- Los Angeles Dodgers – Dustin May
Friday
- Arizona Diamondbacks – Madison Bumgarner
- Atlanta Braves – Mike Soroka
- Baltimore Orioles – Tommy Milone
- Boston Red Sox – Nathan Eovaldi
- Chicago Cubs – Kyle Hendricks
- Chicago White Sox – Lucas Giolito
- Cincinnati Reds – Sonny Gray
- Cleveland Indians – Shane Bieber
- Colorado Rockies – Germán Márquez
- Detroit Tigers – Matthew Boyd
- Houston Astros – Justin Verlander
- Kansas City Royals – Danny Duffy
- Los Angeles Angels – Andrew Heaney
- Miami Marlins – Sandy Alcantara
- Milwaukee Brewers – Brandon Woodruff
- Minnesota Twins – José Berríos
- New York Mets – Jacob deGrom
- Oakland Athletics – Frankie Montas
- Philadelphia Phillies – Aaron Nola
- Pittsburgh Pirates – Joe Musgrove
- San Diego Padres – Chris Paddack
- Seattle Mariners – Marco Gonzales
- St. Louis Cardinals – Jack Flaherty
- Tampa Bay Rays – Charlie Morton
- Texas Rangers – Lance Lynn
- Toronto Blue Jays – Hyun Jin Ryu
