8 Cy Young winners taking the mound on MLB Opening Day

It’s the most wonderful day of the year for baseball fans. Well, it’s one of them I guess — Opening Day! After the World Baseball Classic, the real fun begins, right Keith Olbermann? All 30 teams will have 161 games to go in the regular season after Thursday, with eight former Cy Young winners throwing on the first day of America’s Pastime. I hate that phrase and baseball needs a new one to describe it without it being a self-own.

We’ll roll through the Opening Day matchups here and how game No. 1 can be an indicator of how each team will look in 2023. Oddly enough, we have divisional matchups, interleague play, and everything in between on the first day of the season. I’m not sure it adds to the excitement to have random matchups to start the season, but here we go.

One of the first pair of games to start the day has a first pitch scheduled for just after 1 p.m. Eastern and will feature two teams hoping to get back to the World Series after titles in recent years. The Braves are a lot closer to reaching that goal and will start the season with Max Fried (pictured) on the mound, while the Nationals and Opening Day pitcher Patrick Corbin are trying not to be a dumpster fire after trading away Juan Soto last season.

The Aaron Judge (pictured) sweepstakes are back on! Wait, he never left The Bronx? Oh, then we have teams that used to play less than 40 blocks apart renewing pleasantries in The Big Apple. The Yankees are again among the favorites to win the AL East, while the Giants always appear to contend with a deep farm system and always-reliable pitching.

One of the most improved teams in baseball in 2022 takes on one of the most disappointing from last year to start this season. The Orioles appeared to turn a corner for a better future and then traded away several of those assets. The Red Sox had an awful season last year and haven’t really done much to avoid that nosedive from faltering further moving forward.

Corbin Burnes (pictured) will take the mound at Wrigley Field and will duel with everyone’s favorite pitcher Marcus Stroman, who is great at baseball, but not much else. This NL Central matchup will set the tone for how one of the most consistently great divisions in baseball will play out this season, with the Brewers being a dark horse pick for the World Series. The Cubs are not.

Two average teams playing in the worst ballpark in Major League Baseball. What could go wrong? Eduardo Rodriguez will start for the Tigers and Shane McClanahan gets the ball for the Rays. Neither team should set the world on fire this season, but neither should be bad either. It’s just average and more average.

Here is one of the most interesting matchups of the day. Has a team improved more this offseason than the Rangers? Bringing in Opening Day starter Jacob deGrom (pictured) provides a safety net rarely seen in Arlington should he stay healthy. The Phillies absolutely aren’t slouches here either with Aaron Nola on the mound.

Another NL Central matchup. Mitch Keller will be on the mound for the Pirates, while Hunter Greene (pictured) has the honors for the Reds. Neither of these teams is expected to be great this season and these easily could be the two worst teams in a division that also has the Cardinals, Cubs, and Brewers.

The Padres seem to be consistently in the conversation for one of Major League Baseball’s best over the last few seasons and in 2023, there is no exception. The Rockies have been one of the least relevant teams in baseball over the last two decades and that also shouldn’t change this year.

There is no game in Canada to start the 2023 season as MLB’s lone team from outside the United States visits the (kind of) great city of St. Louis. Toronto still hasn’t had the swagger of those teams from the middle of the last decade, while the Cardinals will start their second season with Oliver Marmol in charge.

Here’s an AL Central matchup where Pablo López gets the Opening Day start for the Twins and Zack Greinke is back in Kansas City. The Twins should be much improved this season while the Royals will be what we’ve expected from Kansas City for most of the 21st century. Those cool fountains are still there.

The Edwin Diaz-less Mets — and I promise you it was fun for me to write that — will begin a campaign to remember, or not, in Florida against the Marlins, who definitely also won’t have anything fun to do for most of the baseball season. Misery knows company and this is one heck of a matchup to start the season.

Tony La Russa no longer manages the White Sox and I think everyone in baseball is happy to see Chicago’s South Side possibly contend again. Unluckily for the White Sox, the favorites to win this year’s World Series, the Astros, will be their first opponents. Never forget Houston cheated.

Fresh off striking out teammate Mike Trout (pictured) to end the World Baseball Classic, Shohei Ohtani will get the ball to start the season for the Angels, who are now the worst team in the AL West. Kyle Muller will start for Oakland, who didn’t get worse this offseason, but are likely the second-to-worst team in the division.

The Dodgers will once again be one of baseball’s best teams and will face an interesting challenge from the Diamondbacks. The NL West should be the best division in baseball and Arizona has a chance to show it on Opening Day with Zac Gallen starting on the mound. The Dodgers counter with Julio Urias (pictured).

Two pennant contenders in the American League start the season way out west. Seattle was back in the postseason last year and has all the tools to do it again this year. The Guardians should win the AL Central. This will be one of the best games of Opening Day with Shane — not Justin — Bieber (pictured) and Luis Castillo facing off on the mound.