The incredible Giants Opening Day streak that goes back to Bonds

One of the best parts about baseball is the wild, zany facts that can materialize. Here’s another of those. We often take note when a player starts Opening Day in a handful of consecutive seasons for a team. But what about when the opposite happens, and a team starts a different player at a specific position on Opening Day many years in a row?

Enter: the Giants. With Michael Conforto starting in left field for the Giants on Thursday, San Francisco has started a different player in left field on Opening Day in 18 straight seasons. That breaks a tie with the 2005-21 Padres, also at left field, for the second-longest streak of Opening Days starting a different player, with no repeaters, at any particular position since 1900, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The longest such streak belongs to the Browns/Orioles from 1937-55, also at left field – a whopping 19 straight Opening Days with a different individual manning the position. Again, this is for any particular position, it just so happens that the top three are all left-field streaks.

The Giants have started a different player in left field each year since 2007, a streak that dates to Barry Bonds’ final year. Bonds started 14 of 15 seasons in left field for the Giants from 1993-2007, missing only '05, due to injury. Now, Conforto joins the ranks of Opening Day left fielders in recent (and not-so-recent) memory.

Giants Opening Day LF since 2007
2007: Barry Bonds
2008: Dave Roberts
2009: Fred Lewis
2010: Mark DeRosa
2011: Pat Burrell
2012: Aubrey Huff
2013: Andres Torres
2014: Mike Morse
2015: Nori Aoki
2016: Angel Pagan
2017: Jarrett Parker
2018: Hunter Pence
2019: Connor Joe
2020: Alex Dickerson
2021: Austin Slater
2022: Joc Pederson
2023: Blake Sabol
2024: Michael Conforto