Milwaukee Brewers: Brandon Woodruff will break Opening Day curse

Brandon Woodruff will start Opening Day for the Milwaukee Brewers, looking to end a recent run of bad luck for Opening Day starters in Milwaukee.

Late last week, the Milwaukee Brewers announced RHP Brandon Woodruff as their 2020 Opening Day starter, the first Opening Day start of Woodruff’s young career.

The announcement doesn’t come as a shock to anyone who follows the Milwaukee Brewers after Woodruff put together an All-Star campaign in his first full season as a starter at the major league level, going 11-3 with a 3.62 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and 143 strikeouts in 121.2 innings.

Despite a major boost in home runs across baseball in 2019, Woodruff posted one of the lowest home run rates in the majors (min. 100 IP) at 0.89/9 IP. Only nine other starting pitchers allowed fewer home runs per game.

Woodruff had a fantastic 2019 and is more than deserving of the Opening Day nod. He may just be the guy to end a trend of terrible luck for Milwaukee Brewers Opening Day starters, an unfortunate trend that dates back half a decade.

Call it bad luck or call it an Opening Day curse for Brewers starting pitchers, but those who take the ball for the Brew Crew on the first day of the season have tended to fall flat that season, unable to live up to the “ace” expectations placed upon them.

The Milwaukee Brewers Opening Day curse.

The Brewers have sent a different Opening Day starter to the bump every year since Yovani Gallardo took the ball to begin the 2010-2014 seasons. Since then, it’s been a bit of a curse for Brewers pitchers.

Beginning in 2015, RHP Kyle Lohse was coming off a 13-9 season with a 3.54 ERA and the highest strikeout rate of his career across a full season since 2006. Lohse failed to make it out of the fourth inning against the Colorado Rockies on Opening Day, giving up eight earned runs across 3.1 innings as the Brewers ultimately fell 10-0.

Things never got much better for Lohse, finishing his last full season in Major League Baseball with a 5-13 record and 5.85 ERA. He would make just two more starts in his career, going 0-2 and giving up 13 runs in 9.1 innings in his two starts with the Texas Rangers in 2016.

Milwaukee’s 2016 Opening Day starter, RHP Wily Peralta, was pretty much doomed from the start. Peralta was solid with the Brewers in 2013 and 2014, including a 17-win, 2.6 bWAR season in 2014. He stumbled to a 5-10 record in 2015 and saw his strikeout numbers plummet. Not exactly what you want to see from someone looking to lead a pitching staff.

Peralta and the Brewers began the 2016 season with a 12-3 loss to the Giants and Peralta went on to finish the season with a 7-11 record and 4.86 ERA. He has since transitioned to the bullpen, spending the last two seasons with the Kansas City Royals.

The 2017 season was supposed to be a must-watch campaign for second-year pitcher Junior Guerra. After going 9-3 with a 2.81 ERA across his first 20 career starts the previous season, Guerra took the mound for Opening Day 2017, giving up two runs on one hit across three innings against Colorado. He made just 13 more starts that season and was worth -0.1 bWAR, this after a 3.7 bWAR season in his rookie campaign.

Currently with the Toronto Blue Jays, Chase Anderson made a name for himself in 2017 with a 12-4 season and 2.74 ERA, but as you easily guessed from the point of this article, he struggled after being named the 2018 Opening Day starter. Anderson was worth -0.1 bWAR and led the league in home runs allowed with 30 across 30 starts.

Finally, we get to last season and Jhoulys Chacin. Chacin quietly put together back-to-back impressive seasons with the San Diego Padres and Brewers in 2017 and 2018, going 15-8 with a 3.50 ERA in Milwaukee. His Opening Day win against St. Louis would be one of his three total wins last season as the righty went a combined 3-12 with a 6.01 ERA and 1.56 WHIP with the Brewers and Red Sox.

Chacin was released by Milwaukee in August, failing to make it through the entire season.

It’s now up to Woodruff to right this ship for Milwaukee pitchers and break the streak. His breakout season last year was highlighted by a lot of weak contact (top 3% in baseball in average exit velocity), a near 30% strikeout rate, low walk totals, and a minimal amount of long balls given up.

He has looked dominant during summer camp for the Brewers and looks poised for another big year as he leads the Milwaukee Brewers through the 2020 season. If anyone on this pitching staff is good enough to break the streak, it’s Woodruff.