Washington Nationals: Ranking The Past Opening Day Lineups
By Ricky Keeler
2007 – 11.3
In Acta’s first season as the manager in D.C., the Nats finished with a 73-89 record, which was a two win improvement from the prior season. Acta’s Opening Day lineup that year was led by Zimmerman, who had a 4.6 WAR and led the team in home runs (24) and RBI’s (91).
After Zimmerman, the two other Nats that had a WAR higher than two that year were left fielder Ryan Church (3.3) and Austin Kearns (2.6). Church had 15 home runs that season (career high) and Kearns hit .266 with 16 home runs and 74 RBI’s. Both of them were also in the top three in on-base percentage.
Three Washington Nationals in that lineup had a negative WAR, including the opening day starting pitcher, John Patterson (-0.5). Patterson appeared in just seven games that season due to injury and went 1-5 with a 7.67 ERA. As for the other two, infielder Felipe Lopez hit a mere .245 and catcher Brian Schneider hit .235 with six home runs.
That afternoon, Patterson gave up seven runs in a 9-2 loss to the then Florida Marlins at RFK stadium. Miguel Cabrera had four RBI’s, including a two-run home run against Patterson in the fourth inning. The Nats offense only managed two runs against Dontrelle Willis over the course of six innings.
The weirdest part of that season was that no starting pitcher finished the season with ten wins. In fact, the team leader for wins that year was a reliever (Jon Rauch had eight). However, no starter had ten losses either.