Yu Darvish Opening day starter, The Last 5 Starters

2009 – Kevin Millwood

Millwood is the last Texas Rangers pitcher to start opening day back-to-back.  In fact he was the starting pitcher from 2006-2009.   Millwood had a rough streak of losing the first 3 Opening day starts before finally getting a win in 2009.  The Rangers won that game 9-1 over the Cleveland Indians.  The Rangers won that game with some stellar pitching from Millwood and some hot bats from the Rangers.  Hank Blalock, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia both homered and Rangers had a 4 run 4th to help Millwood get the win.  Millwood said that he prepped during the offseason with his conditioning and commented on it after the game.

"“It made a huge difference,” Millwood said. “I felt I could still keep on pitching. That’s a pretty good sign when you feel I can throw more than 110-115 pitches and still get something on the ball.” (MLB.com – T.R. Sullivan)"

But Millwood wouldn’t record another win until April 28.  Millwood did go on to have a good season with a record of 13-10 and an 3.67 ERA over 31 starts/198.2 innings, but his time in Texas was done.  He moved on to Baltimore, where he had a disastrous year going 4-16 with an ERA of 5.10.