MLB Opening Day is scheduled for tomorrow, which means there are some huge pitching matchups on the docket as teams toss their aces looking to get their seasons started with a win.
A lot of aces won't be out there tomorrow, as New York Yankee hurler Gerrit Cole, Tampa Bay Ray Shane McClanahan, and newly-minted Los Angeles Dodger Shohei Ohtani are all either out hurt or injured in their capacity as pitchers only in Ohtani's case.
While that means three of baseball's 10 best pitchers won't be out there tomorrow, there's still a ton of talent to tune in to see.
Here are the three best pitching matchups fans will be treated to on Thursday.
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MLB Opening Day: Spencer Strider (Atlanta) vs. Zack Wheeler (Philadelphia)
The Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies are set to renew their rivalry on Thursday afternoon, and they'll do it with very arguably the two best pitchers in the whole National League on the bump.
The Braves will be looking for payback as the Phillies have knocked them out of the playoffs two years in a row, while the Phillies will try to make a dent in Atlanta's regular season dominance over the National League East.
Spencer Strider is coming off of a Spring Training in which he went 3-1 with a 0.79 ERA and struck out 35 batters in 22.2 innings pitched. Much has been made about his new curveball that looks like a plus offering, and if that pans out as the case, hitters are in for an absolute nightmare against Strider this year, as the young righty already features a top-of-the-line fastball and slider.
Zach Wheeler, on the other end, has anchored Philadelphia's strong rotation since he joined the Phillies as a free agent a few years ago. He finished in the top 12 in Cy Young voting in three of his four years in red, and he was outstanding in 2022, the year he didn't.
There may be no starter in the league more of a sure thing to be at least very good than Wheeler, who has proven to be a durable force in the regular season and one of the most fearsome hurlers in the playoffs.
This game is about as good as it gets for opening day.
MLB Opening Day: Yu Darvish (San Diego) vs. Logan Webb (San Francisco)
If the National League Cy Young winner this season doesn't come from the last matchup, it very well might be Logan Webb who takes home that hardware this year.
Though he's coming off of a rough Spring Training, Webb was dominant in 2023, racking up 194 strikeouts, topping the 200-inning mark, and pitching to a 3.25 ERA.
Logan Webb is well entrenched as one of the elite pitchers in the game at this point, and the matchup against the Padres and Yu Darvish will be a sign of things to come for him in 2024.
For Darvish on the other hand, this is actually his second outing of the regular season after he pitched in the international series games against the Dodgers in South Korea.
That outing did not go very well, but there are mountains of evidence to suggest that Yu Darvish will continue to be a strong top-of-the-rotation pitcher this year, even at 37 years of age.
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MLB Opening Day: Cole Ragans (Kansas City) vs. Pablo Lopez (Minnesota)
The inclusion of this matchup may surprise some readers, but there is perhaps no pitcher more interesting this season than Cole Ragans, whom the Royals acquired from the Texas Rangers in exchange for Aroldis Chapman prior to last year's trade deadline.
The Royals, not known as a pitching factory, found something in Ragans that empowered him to strike out 10.59 batters per 9 innings while putting up a 3.47 ERA in 2023.
In 2022 with the Rangers, he struck out just over 6 batters per 9 and allowed a 4.95 ERA. There was nothing fluky about his performance with the Royals last season either, the question is not whether he can avoid natural regression but whether he can replicate the elite level he found last year.
Minnesota has its own ace acquired via trade too, in Pablo Lopez, gotten from the Marlins last season in exchange for Luis Arraez. Lopez provided stability at the top of the rotation that Twins fans had been missing since Johan Santana left for New York 17 years ago.
Pablo Lopez started 32 games to the tune of a 3.66 ERA last year, and there's reason to believe he can continue to get even better. The Royals lineup presents somewhat of a favorable matchup to get things started for the 28-year-old in 2024.
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