The Opening Day battle of aces between New York Mets starter Jacob deGrom and Washington Nationals Max Scherzer did not disappoint. Far from it, in fact.
Both aces hit double-digit strikeout totals. In the Live-ball era, two starters reaching 10 strikeouts on Opening Day had only happened one other time.
While that covers a lot of ground, it’s not terribly surprising. Especially in more recent years with an increased emphasis on pitch count, pitchers don’t tend to have long starts in the early part of the season. And because they don’t really have their arm strength built up, hitters also tend to be ahead of pitchers in the early part of the season.
But nobody seemed to tell that to either deGrom or Scherzer.