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Fansided

Milwaukee Brewers Bizarre Opening Day Starter Curse

By Kenny Jilek

SAN DIEGO, CA - MARCH 29: Chase Anderson #57 of the Milwaukee Brewers slides as he scores during the third inning on Opening Day against the San Diego Padres at PETCO Park on March 29, 2018 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images)
SAN DIEGO, CA - MARCH 29: Chase Anderson #57 of the Milwaukee Brewers slides as he scores during the third inning on Opening Day against the San Diego Padres at PETCO Park on March 29, 2018 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images) /
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Milwaukee Brewers
PITTSBURGH, PA – JUNE 10: Kyle Lohse #26 of the Milwaukee Brewers is taken out of the game in the seventh inning by manager Craig Counsell #30 during the game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park on June 10, 2015 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images) /

2015 – The beginning

This whole article is going to get pretty depressing and is gonna invoke some not so fond nostalgia so I’ll start with a Kyle Lohse fun fact: He once played left field for the St. Louis Cardinals in a 20 inning game against the Mets in 2010 in which no one scored until the 19th inning.

Alright now for the ugly part. Kyle Lohse had two very successful seasons at ages 34 and 35 for the Milwaukee Brewers in which he was a workhorse throwing a total of four complete games, three shutouts, along with 198 innings in each of them and posted ERAs of 3.35 and 3.54. It just seemed logical to hand him the ball for Opening Day as a 36-year-old that showed no signs of decline.

This decision backfired and spurred a series of four years of misfortune for him and his successors. That season he had a record of 5-13 with a horrendous 5.85 ERA and only started 22 games before being sent to bullpen duty, where he pitched in 15 games.

The next season he threw two abysmal starts for the Texas Rangers and his career was over.

Ultimately, Lohse’s sinker failed him in 2015. Unfortunately, that was the first year that statcast was implemented so there isn’t anything to compare those numbers to, but his sinker was awful. It was his favorite pitch that he threw 43.9% of the time.  Opposing batters hit .340 against the sinker and slugged .612 against it. His offspeed stuff was not the issue, as batters hit .236 and .250 respectively against them with respectable whiff rates of 29.1 percent and 34.4 percent.

The loss of the sinker killed Kyle Lohse’s season, and his career not long after. He passed this sinker plague on to another power sinker pitcher, Wily Peralta.

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