One of the best parts about baseball is the wild, zany facts that can materialize. Here’s another of those. We often take note when a player starts Opening Day in a handful of consecutive seasons for a team. But what about when the opposite happens, and a team starts a different player at a specific position on Opening Day many years in a row?
Enter: the Giants. They have started a different player in left field on Opening Day for 19 straight seasons. That ties the 1937-55 Browns/Orioles, also in left field, for the longest streak of Opening Days starting a different player, with no repeaters, at any particular position since 1900, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
But that streak might finally be coming to an end. Heliot Ramos joined the ranks of Giants Opening Day left fielders last season, and manager Tony Vitello said Ramos will start in that spot again for the team's Opening Night game versus the Yankees on Wednesday. That would give San Francisco a level of consistency it hasn't had at that position since 2007, Barry Bonds’ final year in the big leagues. Here is the list of Giants left fielders on Opening Day since then.
Giants Opening Day LF since 2007
2007: Barry Bonds
2008: Dave Roberts
2009: Fred Lewis
2010: Mark DeRosa
2011: Pat Burrell
2012: Aubrey Huff
2013: Andres Torres
2014: Mike Morse
2015: Nori Aoki
2016: Angel Pagan
2017: Jarrett Parker
2018: Hunter Pence
2019: Connor Joe
2020: Alex Dickerson
2021: Austin Slater
2022: Joc Pederson
2023: Blake Sabol
2024: Michael Conforto
2025: Heliot Ramos
In 2024, the Giants broke a tie with the 2005-21 Padres, again in left field, for the second-longest such streak. (To be clear, this record is for any particular position, it just so happens that the top three streaks all have come in left field.)