With the start of the 2020 Major League Baseball season just around the corner, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts officially announced Clayton Kershaw will start on Opening Day against the San Francisco Giants.
It will be Kershaw’s ninth career Opening Day start, which extends his franchise record. He started seven straight from 2012-18 before missing the first game of the season last year due to injury. Hyun-Jin Ryu started in his place and got a win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Kershaw wasn’t the only candidate to get the ball on Opening Day as Walker Buehler certainly made his case after developing into one of the best young pitchers in baseball over the last couple of years.
Ultimately, Roberts decided to go with the veteran, so Buehler and David Price will be following Kershaw in the Dodgers’ Opening Series rotation against the Giants, via David Vassegh of AM 570 LA Sports:
#Dodgers Opening Series rotation will be: Kershaw, Buehler, Price.
— David Vassegh (@THEREAL_DV) March 9, 2020
Buehler sandwiched in between two former Cy Young winners in Kershaw and Price gives the Dodgers one of the best trios of starters in all of baseball. Julio Urias and Alex Wood will then round out a rotation that features four left-handers.
The 2019 season was a good one for Buehler in particular as he was named an All-Star for the first time in his career. He went 14-4 with a 3.26 ERA, 3.01 FIP and 1.04 WHIP with 215 strikeouts and 37 walks in 182.1 innings across 30 starts. The 25-year-old has set a goal of reaching the 200-inning threshold in 2020.
Price is coming off an injury-plagued season with the Boston Red Sox, but is now healthy and hoping to bounce back after being traded to the Dodgers. In 22 starts, he went 7-5 with a 4.28 ERA, 3.62 FIP and 1.31 WHIP with 128 strikeouts and 32 walks in 107.1 innings.
The 34-year-old had been dealing with a left wrist triangular fibrocartilage cyst that he said had been bothering him for multiple years. After undergoing offseason surgery, he has looked great to start the spring, notably tossing three shutout innings with seven strikeouts in his most recent Cactus League start.
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