Milwaukee Brewers: The Opening Day Starter Curse Lives On

Given Jhoulys Chacin’s performance which led to his eventual release, it is clear that the Milwaukee Brewers’ Opening Day starter curse lives on.

Prior to the Milwaukee Brewers season beginning, one of our writers, Kenny Jilek took an in-depth look at the Opening Day starter curse that has been following this team around for the last few seasons.

But given Jhoulys Chacin’s performance this season that eventually led to the Brewers releasing him, I thought this would be a good time to revisit the curse that has now been going on strong for five seasons in a row.

However, before we jump into Chacin’s demise, let’s take a brief look back at how this all began in 2015.

After two successful seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers, Kyle Lohse was named the Opening Day starter for the 2015 season. While he was at the end of his career at that time, no one really expected to see that steep of a drop off in performance. That season Lohse would finish with a record of 5-13 and an ERA of 5.85 in only 22 starts before he was relegated to the bullpen.

The following year it was Wily Peralta’s turn but after a rough 2015 season, we should have expected some struggles in 2016. Peralta would go just 7-11 with a 4.86 ERA and a WHIP of 1.527 before being sent to the bullpen.

In 2017, Junior Guerra took the mound on Opening Day but suffered an injury early on in the season. Although there were some promising outings, he was never able to get back on track and finished with a 5.12 ERA and you guessed it, he was sent to the bullpen.

Then just last year, after a fantastic 2017 from Chase Anderson, he was unable to carry that momentum over to the 2018 season where the home run ball was a major issue for him. Even though his 3.93 ERA and 1.19 WHIP aren’t horrible by any means, his FIP of 5.22 is a far more accurate portrayal of his performance and as a result, he was left off of the postseason roster.

While we were all hoping that this year would be different for Chacin, he may have had the biggest drop-off of any of the pitchers on this list.

After Milwaukee signed Chacin to a two year – $15.5 million contract during the 2018 offseason, the deal looked like an absolute steal given his performance last season. Chacin finished the year with a 15-8 record, a 3.50 ERA, a 1.163 WHIP, and a career-high in strikeouts with 156.

Chacin quickly became the Brewers top pitcher that would eventually start game 163 against the Chicago Cubs and was big contributor to their playoff push.

While many of his numbers from 2018 were better than his career averages, it was reasonable to expect some regression this season but I can’t imagine anyone thought that he’d fall apart the way that he did.

Pretty much from the start of the season Chacin struggled and could never put it together. In 19 starts he would allow 19 home runs, recorded an ERA of 5.79 and a WHIP of 1.556. Eventually, Chacin was placed on the IL and was ultimately released less than a week ago.

This has been an unfortunate trend for the Milwaukee Brewers and I’m not sure that there is a concrete answer out there as to why it continues to happen. But as we look ahead to next season, maybe the Opening Day starter should be Taylor Williams or Jay Jackson just to be safe. Heck, even I’ll volunteer.