Top Four Cy Young Finalists Face Off On Opening Day For First Time In Forty Years
Gaylord Perry Is The Only Member Of The 1979 Opening Day Quartet To Reach Cooperstown
Opening Day Has Pair Of Games With Runner Ups Facing Reigning Cy Young Winners
When March 28 arrives and most teams take the field for Opening Day, there should be some discussion set aside for a couple of pitchers you could refer to as the two Gees. These guys, righthander Gaylord Perry and lefty Ron Guidry, were the last two pitchers involved in a rarity that will be happening again for the first time in exactly forty years.
New York's Jacob deGromm, the winner of the Cy Young Award last year, will be on the mound when the Mets open their season in Washington. Opposing deGromm will be Max Scherzer, who finished right behind him in the Cy Young voting.
The same situation will be happening a few hours later in the American League, when Tampa Bay takes on the Astros. The 2018 Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell of the Rays will be opposed by the pitcher he beat out in the voting, Justin Verlander of the Astros.
You have to go back almost a half a century, when the President was Jimmy Carter and disco rule the music charts, to find the last time the reigning Cy Young Award winners opposed the two runner ups on Opening Day of the following year.
Both Gaylord Perry and Ron Guidry won their league's Cy Young Award in 1978, so they began their defense of that honor on Opening Day on the next fifth of April. Each pitcher found himself in an undesirable position that day, having to face the hurler who had finished second in the Cy Young voting the season before.
Perry went 21-6 with a 2.71 ERA for the San Diego Padres in 1978, statistics that had made him a near shoe-in for the Cy Young honor. Finishing just behind him was Burt Hooten, who had gone 19-10 with a 2.71 ERA to help lead the Dodgers to the pennant in 1978.
In the matchup between the winner and the runner up, each pitcher went eight innings and yielded three runs. Both departed from the mound when the game was in a deadlock, heading to the last frame.
The tie was broken in the top of the ninth, when Lance Rautzner relieved Hooton. Pinch hitter Kurt Bevaqua drew a base on balls, advanced to third on a single by Gene Richards, and scored on a wild pitch while Ozzie Smith was at bat.
In the bottom half San Diego called on closer Rollie Fingers to save it, but he was facing a formidable trio. Steve Garvey greeted him with a single, but he was erased on a failed steal attempt. Fingers then induced back to back fly outs from Ron Cey and Dusty Baker, thereby preserving Perry's first win of the season.
Ron Guidry had been an eye-popping 25-3 with a 1.71 ERA the previous season, leading the Yankees to their second straight World Series Championship over the Dodgers. Mike Caldwell had finished second behind Guidry in the Cy Young voting, having gone 22-9 with a 2.76 ERA with the Brewers.
Then the two faced each other on Opening Day in 1979, when Guidry at first seemed to have the upper hand. The lefty shut out the potent Milwaukee lineup for the first five frames, but after yielding four runs Guidry was taken out in the sixth.
Caldwell, on the other hand, got off to a rocky start. Lead off hitter Mickey Rivers got a single, and Willie Randolph did the same. Thurman Munson's hit then loaded the bases with no one out, allowing Cliff Johnson to drive in the first run with a sacrifice fly.
After those successive hits to the first three batters, Caldwell settled down. The Yankees managed just four more hits, as Caldwell shut them out over the last eight innings.
That opener served as kind of an omen for the Bronx Bombers, who for the first time in three seasons failed to make the playoffs. Their neighbors in the Big Apple are hoping that deGromm's Opening Day start against the Cy Young runner up has the opposite effect, leading the Mets to the playoffs for the first time in three seasons.
