4:10 PM ET Minnesota Twins – Pablo Lopez @ Kansas City Royals – Zack Greinke
Pablo Lopez will be making his Twins debut today. After there was much chatter that Lopez would be traded last season at the trade deadline, the Marlins finally moved him to the Twins during the offseason. Lopez is a quality starter out of Venezuela that started 32 games for the Marlins last season. He ended the season with a 10-10 record, 180 innings pitched, struck out 174, had a 3.75 ERA, and a 1.167 WHIP. Lopez will be a free agent at the end of the 2023 season, so he has some incentive to perform at a high level.
Some baseball players should be considered national treasures. Zack Greinke is one of those guys. He is incredibly intelligent and to say that he is quirky is putting it lightly. But not only is he a bit different, he has been a great pitcher for a long time. Last season marked the reunion of Greinke with his old club, the Royals. If he can stay healthy this season, he has a legitimate chance to reach 3,000 career strikeouts. Greinke doesn’t strike people out at the same rate that he used to, but he currently sits at 2,882 thus he will need 118 strikeouts this season to reach the milestone.
4:10 PM ET Pittsburgh Pirates – Mitch Keller @ Cincinnati Reds – Hunter Greene
This is a battle of the youngsters. Both Mitch Keller (who turns 27 on April 4) and Hunter Greene (age 23) will be making their first Opening Day starts. There is sure to be some nervous energy between the two right-handed pitchers.
Keller is coming off the best season of his four-year career. Not lacking in confidence, the Pirates starter pitched in 31 games (29 starts), had 159 IP, had a 3.91 ERA, and a 1.396 WHIP. The Pirates struggled to find an identity in 2022 and will be looking for Keller to step up and supply some much needed stability to the starting rotation.
Hunter Greene is electric. With a four-seamer that sat at 98.9 mph in 2022, Baseball Savant ranks Greene’s fastball velocity in the top 99 percent of MLB. Strikeouts were plentiful (30.9 percent K%) for Greene in his rookie campaign, but unfortunately for him, so were the walks (9 percent BB%) and home runs allowed (4.5 percent HR%). If Greene can reduce the number of free passes and keep the ball in the park, 2023 could be a good season for the talented hurler.