Tampa Bay Rays: Breaking down Opening Day starters of the NL East

Tampa Bay Rays: The Opening Day starters have been announced and baseball is on the way. We break down every Opening Day starter in the NL East Division.

The Tampa Bay Rays and the AL East will only play interdivisional games against the conveniently located NL East teams, in an effort to minimize travel.

Several teams have announced who their Opening Day starters will be while we have to guess with others. We’ll let you know if we are projecting or the team has confirmed.

Tampa Bay Rays – NL East Opening Day Starters (probable and announced)

Atlanta Braves: Mike Soroka (announced) – This is no surprise following his stellar rookie season that led him to a second-place finish in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. Soroka finished his first full campaign with a 2.68 ERA in 29 starts with 13 wins and four losses. He was selected to the All-Star team and will be the youngest Opening Day starter for the Braves since 1878. Soroka’s Opening Day nod will finally put an end to Julio Teheran’s six-year reign as the Braves’ Opening Day hurler.

Washington Nationals: Max Scherzer (announced) and he’ll probably throw 110 pitches. If manager Dave Martinez tries to remove him before 100 pitches, Scherzer might punch him.

New York Mets: Jacob deGrom (probable) The defending NL Cy Young Award winner is a no-brainer. He has two consecutive Cy Young Awards with a spectacular career ERA of 2.62 over two years.

Philadelphia Phillies: Aaron Nola (probable) has started the past two Opening Day games for the Phillies. There’s no reason to change that this season, despite Zack Wheeler’s 5-year, $118 contract this offseason.

Miami Marlins: Sandy Alcantara (probable) While Don Mattingly hasn’t announced who his starter will be, he has hinted that he has an idea. Alcantara was the best they had last season, but this could also end up being someone like Caleb Smith.

Tampa Bay Rays – News Around the MLB

• Tyler Glasnow became the first Rays player to confirm he had COVID-19.
• Yasiel Puig has reportedly signed a deal with the Atlanta Braves. The Braves and Rays will face off in the second series of the season.
• The Rays were picked by MLB.com as the second-best rotation in the game, behind only the Washington Nationals.
• Randy Arozarena, Yonny Chirinos, and Jose Marinez have been absent since the beginning of camp. Brendan McKay hasn’t been seen working in over a week, and Austin Meadows has not been in action since the very first workout on July 3. We won’t speculate on the reasons.

We’ll get to the Rays and the AL East’s Opening Day starters tomorrow.