Madison Bumgarner Sets The Record Straight About An "Opener"
Photo Credit: Thearon Henderson
I’m going to be honest, going into this I had no clue what an “opener” was. I was obviously able to put two and two together but I have never heard the term “opener” used before and I absolutely hate as much as I hate the concept itself. So with the influx of analytics into baseball in recent years from the fielding shifts to the handling of pitching and use of the bullpen, an idea has come about to some teams that it’s better start out with the bullpen, an “opener”, in a game instead of the classic route of starting pitcher followed by the bullpen. The Tampa Bay Rays are the team that have seemed to have brought this idea to the forefront as they used “openers” as well as even had bullpen days where they rode the bullpen all the way through 9 innings. We even saw the concept adopted by some other teams and it even made a few appearances in the playoffs. The Oakland A’s famously opted for an opener in their wildcard game against the Yankees in which they gave up a first inning homerun and ended up losing, and the Brewers who used a bullpen day in game 1 of their NLDS, granted that was due to no starting pitching being rested.
So that brings us to Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants. With the idea of an opener likely to gain steam in today’s day and age of analytical baseball, the Giant’s GM Farhan Zaidi said in an interview that he has been in discussion and has thought about using an opener for the 2019 season. He never said that the team was going to do this for sure, just that he’s at least given it some thought. Well after the Giant’s ace got wind of this he sent head coach Bruce Bochy a text saying “If you use an opener in my game I’m walking right out of the ballpark”. And let me tell you I absolutely love this quote from Bumgarner. Bumgarner is undoubtedly the ace on this pitching staff. He’s a 3 time World Series champion who plays his best when it matters the most. The man single handedly willed the 2015 Giants team to a championship. So if there’s anybody that can speak out against the usage of an opener and say this, it’s him.
To me, using an opener is pretty much telling the world that hey our staring pitching sucks. But my biggest issue with this opener and bullpenning is the effect it’s having on the game. You have the dumbass MLB commissioner Rob Manfred always trying to implement rules like a pitch clock to speed up the game, but this right here is your problem. The analystics is the problem. Teams bring in a reliever to face 1 batter is the problem. No wonder the average baseball game has shot past 3 hrs when you have teams using 6-7 relievers a game. I don’t know how you implement rules to limit reliever use, without it being too restrictive on crucial games at the end of the regular season or the playoffs but I can assure you that bullpenning or using an opener is doing absolutely no favors for the game of baseball. Nobody wants to see 7 different pitchers warm up and come in for a team in the middle of July. The MLB just seems to be the perfect example of doing whatever it takes to win even if it means screwing up the game and shooting the league in the foot long-term.