Box of the day: Bumgarner's 2HRs on Opening Day

The 2016 season was, by many metrics, the best of Madison Bumgarner’s career. He had a career-low 2.74 ERA, a career-high 251 strikeouts and finished fourth for National League Cy Young while receiving down-ballot MVP consideration as well. He’d been an All-Star in four straight seasons and gotten Cy Young votes in each of those. If he was your NL Cy Young pick entering the 2017 season, it wouldn’t have been exactly out of left field.

The Giants, as a team, were on the heels of a long run of success, too. They’d finished above .500 in all but one season since 2009. They’d won three World Series in a five-season span, then had another postseason appearance in 2016.

They’d go on to win just 64 games in 2017, with a .395 winning percentage that was their lowest since 1985 and fifth-lowest in franchise history. Bumgarner would make just 17 starts, his fewest since being a September callup in 2009, after sustaining a left shoulder injury in a dirt bike accident. Newly signed closer Mark Melancon, who got a $62 million deal, would blow five saves in 16 chances, including on Opening Day, and have two separate injured list stints.

But entering Opening Day 2017, none of that had happened yet, and hope sprung eternal. Let’s check out our box score of the day:

Player of the game: Madison Bumgarner, SP, Giants
Bumgarner was functioning on all cylinders early in his Opening Day start, in what would be the final of a four-season streak of opener starts for the lefty. He didn’t even allow a baserunner until one out in the sixth, putting together what was at the time the longest perfect bid on Opening Day since J.R. Richard in 1980, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Bumgarner ended up with 11 strikeouts and no walks, the most strikeouts by any Giants pitcher on Opening Day since the mound moved to its current distance in 1893, per Elias.

But the real show came when Bumgarner himself was at the plate. He led off the top of the fifth inning with a solo homer off Zack Greinke, then added another off Andrew Chafin in the seventh to break a 3-3 tie. Bumgarner became the first pitcher in Major League history with multiple homers in a game on Opening Day. The only other pitcher with multiple Opening Day homers in his career is Don Drysdale, but he did it in separate games.

The game would end up being the high point of Bumgarner’s season in many ways, his only double-digit strikeout game in an injury-shortened campaign. But his two homers on Opening Day, even in an eventual loss, were quite memorable.

Remember him? Ty Blach, RP, Giants
Blach pitched to just one batter in the game, getting Jake Lamb to ground into a double play in the eighth. It was just his fifth career Major League appearance in the regular season, but he’d already endeared himself to Giants fans -- and they were about to get even more familiar with him.

Blach had made his Major League debut the previous September, pitching in long relief twice before making two starts. His second career start was the one worth writing home about, when he turned in eight scoreless innings in the 161st game of the season, against the Dodgers, to keep the Giants in the Wild Card hunt. Not only did he do that, he also got two hits off Clayton Kershaw, becoming just the second pitcher to have two hits off him in a single game, joining Craig Stammen in 2010.

He’d go on to take Bumgarner’s spot in the rotation when Bumgarner injured his shoulder in late April, getting yet another hit off Kershaw, a double, in his first start in ‘17, on April 25. Blach would be a Bumgarner replacement the following year, too, when the Giants ace was unable to make his scheduled Opening Day start due to a fractured hand suffered late in Spring Training when he was hit by a line drive. Blach made two appearances for the Giants at the Major League level in 2019 before being selected off waivers by the Orioles.

He wore THAT uniform?: Fernando Rodney, RP, D-backs
Rodney is a great pick for this designation in practically any game he’s appeared in, since he’s been on so many teams. Indeed, the D-backs are one of the 11 teams Rodney has played for in his career. He’s still three teams shy of tying Edwin Jackson for the record.

Rodney’s tenure in the desert was one of his shorter stints -- he was on the D-backs for a year, appearing in 61 games for them, all in 2017. He allowed the go-ahead run to the Giants in the ninth in this game, but ultimately was the pitcher of record when his team walked it off, giving him the win.

Before he was big: Nick Ahmed, PH, D-backs
Ahmed debuted in 2014 and played in 134 games in 2015, but hadn’t quite become a mainstay in the D-backs’ lineup yet. Part of that was due to injuries: his 2016 season ended in July with a right hip impingement, but before that, he’d missed only six of the team’s games that year. The injuries would continue into 2017, too, when a fractured right hand would end his season in June.

But now, there’s no question that Ahmed is an everyday player for Arizona. He’s played 150-plus games in each of the last two years, and won the Gold Glove at shortstop for his defensive efforts in each season. In February, he signed a four-year contract extension with the D-backs.

But in this Opening Day game in 2017, he was not yet the player he’s now known to be. He had a key plate appearance in the sixth inning, plating the first run of the game for the D-backs, then scoring on an A.J. Pollock home run that inning.

Last call: Jeremy Hazelbaker, PR, D-backs
Hazelbaker made his Major League debut for the Cardinals in 2016 as a 28-year-old, hitting 12 homers in 224 plate appearances for St. Louis that season. The D-backs selected him off waivers following the season, and he appeared in 41 games for them in 2017. He hasn’t appeared in a Major League game since that season.

His first appearance of ‘17 came as a pinch-runner in in the bottom of the ninth on Opening Day, for Jeff Mathis who had just hit a two-out double off new Giants closer Melancon. Hazelbaker would score from second on a Daniel Descalso double to tie the game, and two batters later, Chris Owings hit a walk-off single to send the D-backs home victorious.

Since 2017, Hazelbaker has played at the Triple-A level for the D-backs, Rays and Twins, as well as in the Australian Baseball League, the KBO and the American Association.