Nathan Eovaldi set to break Rangers' long-standing streak with Opening Day start

It's official. The Rangers have their 2025 Opening Day starter in right hander Nathan Eovaldi.

It was more or less known since March 3 when manager Bruce Bochy announced that Jacob deGrom would be starting from the back of the rotation to kick off the season. While it wasn’t confirmed until Sunday, it was pretty much a given that Eovaldi would get the nod.

It will be Eovaldi’s fifth career Opening Day start and second straight with the Rangers, breaking a long-standing franchise streak. He will be the first pitcher to start back-to-back Opening Days for the club since Kevin Millwood started four straight from 2006-09. Since then Texas has started a different arm every season opener.

Not only that, Eovaldi will become just the seventh pitcher in franchise history to make consecutive Opening Day starts.

Seems odd that it's been 15 years since a Ranger has started back-to-back Opening Days in an era of Rangers baseball where they won a World Series, three American League Pennants (2010, 2011, 2023) and four AL West division titles.

From 2010 on the Rangers were put in evolving situations with pitchers either moving to different teams, retiring or underperforming the year prior which has caused the team to pivot to a new arm every year. Cole Hamels was the most recent Ranger to start multiple Opening Days in Texas, doing so in 2016 and 2018, but the emergence of Yu Darivsh in 2017, ruined his back-to-back chances.

After that the Rangers went through their depression era with Mike Minor (2019), Lance Lynn (2020) and Kyle Gibson (2021). Then Jon Gray started in 2022, deGrom got the nod in 2023 and Eovaldi's first Opening Day start with Texas last season.

The Rangers' rotation has taken a bit of a hit this week after Cody Bradford and Gray went down with injuries but Eovadi has been healthy yet hasn't quite found his groove yet this spring. In three games he's allowed seven runs in nine innings with opposing hitters batting .278 against him. Despite the stats there is zero concern among the Rangers' organization given his track record.

Opening Day is set for March 27 at home in Arlington against the Boston Red Sox. While Boston has yet to officially name their starter for that game, they have two options on the table with newly-acquired arms Walker Buehler or Garrett Crochet.