Can Chase Anderson end an “ugly” trend that has affected the Milwaukee Brewers over the past four seasons?

It was announced yesterday that Anderson will be the Opening Day starting pitcher for the Brew Crew this season. It is certainly an honor that Anderson deserves.

The problem, however, is that Brewers’ Opening Day starting pitchers over the last four seasons have gone on to have less-than-stellar seasons in the year they started Game One.

Anderson is the fifth different Opening Day starting pitcher for the Brewers in the last five years. The others: Yovani Gallardo (2014), Kyle Lohse (2015), Wily Peralta (2016) and Junior Guerra (2017).

The trend is that these last four pitchers mentioned in the previous paragraph had losing records that season they got the nod to start Opening Day: Gallardo went 8-11 in 2014; Lohse was 5-13 in 2015; Peralta ended 2016 at 7-11; and last year, Guerra ended the year with a 1-4 record. Needless to say, the Brewers are hopeful that Anderson can break this disturbing trend.

Looking back to the 18 Opening Day starting pitchers for the Brewers since 2000, there were only seven seasons where the Opening Day starting pitcher ended the year with a winning record. Gallardo was the O.D. starter each year from 2010-2013 and ended each of those four years with winning records. Ben Sheets was the team’s O.D. starter in 2005, 2007 and 2008 and ended those three years with more wins than losses. (Note: Doug Davis was the starter in 2006 and ended that year with an 11-11 record.)

The Brewers since 2000 have started nine different Opening Day starting pitchers…

Steve Woodard, 2000
Jamey Wright, 2001
Ben Sheets, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008
Doug Davis, 2006
Jeff Suppan, 2009
Yovani Gallardo, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
Kyle Lohse, 2015
Wily Peralta, 2016
Junior Guerra, 2017

The above nine pitchers went a combined 179-183 in the years they were the O.D. starting pitcher for the Brewers, a .494 winning percentage. The best season of the O.D. starters since 2000 was Sheets in 2007; he was the O.D. starter that year and ended the season with a 12-5 record (.706 winning percentage). The worst was Steve Woodard in 2000; he was the O.D. starter in 2000 and ended that year with a 1-7 (.125 winning percentage) for the Brewers.

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