Cole-Scherzer joins all-time OD matchups

After so many months of waiting for baseball’s return, fans are getting the ultimate payoff: Gerrit Cole taking the ball against Max Scherzer for the season’s very first game at Nationals Park.

It really doesn’t get any bigger than that for an Opening Day matchup. Though he didn’t win last year’s American League Cy Young Award, we might soon look back at Cole’s 2019 season -- which included 373 strikeouts when all was said and done -- as one of the most dominant of this era (unless, of course, he tops it with even better pitching in the near future). And then there’s Scherzer, Washington’s ultimate competitor and three-time Cy Young who’s looking to add even more to his legacy after finally claiming that World Series ring.

This is the best Opening Day pitching matchup since … OK, since last year, when Scherzer and Jacob deGrom locked horns in D.C. But that only means we’re spoiled, because when looking at recent history, Cole-Scherzer already ranks among the most prominent season-opening showdowns -- even before either man unleashes his first pitch. To get a sense of the battle we’re about to see, MLB.com looked back at Opening Day pitching matchups since the beginning of the Expansion Era in 1961 and identified games in which each starter had accumulated at least 15 wins above replacement (per Baseball-Reference) over the prior three years -- similar to what Cole (14.9 WAR) and Scherzer (21.3) have done since the start of 2017.

From that short list of roughly 25 Opening Day matchups, here are 10 (five from the Wild Card Era, and five from earlier times) that evoked the kind of starpower we’re about to see in the nation’s capital.

Wild Card Era (since 1995)

2019: Jacob deGrom (Mets) at Max Scherzer (Nationals)
Mets 2, Nationals 0
A National League East showdown between the two aces who had split each of the league’s prior three Cy Young Awards lived up to the hype. This was one of only two Opening Day games in history in which each starting pitcher struck out at least 10 hitters (Baltimore’s Dave McNally and Cleveland’s “Sudden” Sam McDowell combined for the other, way back in 1970), and the Mets clung to a 1-0 lead by the time Scherzer departed deep into the eighth inning.

This turned out to be one of Robinson Canó’s better games in a tough debut season for the Mets. Canó homered off Scherzer in the first, and knocked in New York’s second and final run shortly after Scherzer walked off the mound.

2017: Madison Bumgarner (Giants) at Zack Greinke (D-backs)
D-backs 6, Giants 5
Greinke was only two years removed from posting a Major League-best 1.66 ERA with the Dodgers, and Bumgarner had shut out the Mets in the NL Wild Card Game just months before, but this game is obviously more noteworthy for what Bumgarner did at the plate than what either of these pitchers did on the mound. MadBum became the first (and now, likely, the only) pitcher to homer twice on Opening Day (striking each of them with 112-mph exit velocities) and added 11 strikeouts on the mound -- a mammoth all-around individual performance that completely overshadowed the fact that the D-backs actually came back to win, 6-5, via a ninth-inning rally against Giants closer Mark Melancon.

2012: Jon Lester (Red Sox) at Justin Verlander (Tigers)
Tigers 3, Red Sox 2
This wasn’t quite a postseason preview -- the Red Sox would famously finish last in the AL East in 2012 before turning it all around the following year to beat the Tigers in the ALCS and win the World Series -- but Lester had developed into Boston’s ace and Verlander had just won the AL’s Cy Young and MVP awards. Verlander was more dominant and left with a 2-0 lead, but Boston rallied against Tigers reliever Jose Valverde to tie it in the top of the ninth before Detroit rallied back in the bottom half and won it.

2006: Johan Santana (Twins) at Roy Halladay (Blue Jays)
Blue Jays 6, Twins 3
If you held a ticket for this game, you were lucky enough to see two of the decade’s best aces near the absolute peak of their powers. This was particularly a banner season for Santana, who captured the Major Leagues’ pitching triple crown by leading the sport in wins (19), ERA (2.77) and strikeouts (245) en route to his second career Cy Young Award. Yet, this was Santana’s worst outing by game score (35) out of any of his 34 starts in 2006 (and the lowest he’d record until July 23, 2007 -- against the Blue Jays, again, at Rogers Centre).

1999: Curt Schilling (Phillies) at Tom Glavine (Braves)
Phillies 7, Braves 4
This was a showdown between the NL’s reigning strikeout king (Schilling, coming off his second straight 300-K campaign) and its reigning wins leader (Glavine, 20 victories in 1998), but unfortunately it failed to live up to the billing. The aces combined to give up three different leads between them and the Phillies’ rally off Glavine in the seventh, capped by a two-out, two-run single by Marlon Anderson, proved to be the difference maker.

Vintage matchups

1988: Jack Morris (Tigers) at Roger Clemens (Red Sox)
Tigers 5, Red Sox 3
Clemens, the two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner and Morris, the 1980s’ winningest pitcher, went toe-to-toe for nine innings at Fenway Park. The pair combined for 20 strikeouts and worked around three runs apiece before Alan Trammell belted a two-run homer off Red Sox closer Lee Smith in the top of the 10th, leading Detroit to a hard-fought 5-3 win.

Steve Carlton vs. Tom Seaver -- 1973-75, ’81, ’83
Arguably the two best pitchers of their generation, Carlton and Seaver squared off a record five times on Opening Day, including four matchups as members of the Phillies and Mets, respectively. Incredibly, three showdowns came in successive order in the mid-1970s during years that constituted some of the most productive in Seaver’s career. Tom Terrific outdueled Carlton to kick off both his ’73 and ’75 NL Cy Young Award-winning campaigns.

1973: Mickey Lolich (Tigers) at Gaylord Perry (Indians)
Indians 2, Tigers 1
This matchup between the 1972 AL Cy Young Award winner (Perry) and the third-place finisher (Lolich) saw each man go the distance, and it was Perry who again came out on top in a 2-1 victory for the Indians. The showdown drew 74,420 fans to Cleveland Stadium, an Opening Day record that still stands.

1971: Bob Gibson (Cardinals) at Fergie Jenkins (Cubs)
Cubs 2, Cardinals 1
Gibson and Jenkins staged one of the all-time Opening Day battles at Wrigley Field. Each ace pitched into the 10th inning with the score tied at one, with Jenkins’ Cubs finally prevailing when another Hall of Famer, Billy Williams, clubbed a walk-off homer off Gibson. It was the first of 24 wins that year for Jenkins, helping him take him his lone Cy Young Award.

1967: Juan Marichal (Giants) at Bob Gibson (Cardinals)
Cardinals 6, Giants 0
Gibson was still a year away from putting up that incredible 1.12 ERA when he dueled Marichal, who would lead the NL with 26 wins in that memorable summer of 1968. But there was no doubting that those two pitchers ranked among the very cream of the NL's crop -- especially with Sandy Koufax newly retired -- and in this battle of titans, Gibson (five-hit shutout, 13 K’s) routed Marichal (six runs allowed on 14 hits).