The Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates are playing the first MLB season opening day game on ESPN and the season opener is streaming online from WatchESPN at PNC Park and has Jeff Samardzija and Francisco Liriano facing off at 1:00 pm ET and the matchup comes after Pitt made it into the playoffs from the NL Central for the first time in 20 years.
The Cubs come in looking for some marginal improvements after having another losing season, while the Pirates now have some high expectations after making the playoffs and seeing Andrew McCutchen won the NL MVP and their manager Clint Hurdle win manager of the year in 2013. The team has new expectations after breaking the longest playoff drought in sports and now hopes springs eternal as the Opening game starts and this comes after the Dodgers and Padres kicked things off on Sunday night for the first US game this season after two matchups in Australia.
Liriano comes in after winning 16 games last season and he had a 3.02 ERA and is looking for another good year, while Samardzija comes in after going 8-13 and putting up 200 strikeouts in over 200 innings and he is expecting to take another step in his development this season. The Cubs now are the team mired in the bottom of the division and they lost nearly 100 games and now Theo Epstein is looking for improvement from a number of young players, including Darwin Barney and Starlin Castro as well as Samardzija. Liriano is now the big man in the rotation after A.J. Burnett left for the Phillies and he has his expectations for himself.
The Cubs come in after winning just 66 games and they finished last in the NL Central after the Pirates did that many years in a row and they come in after being ranked in the bottom of the league in nearly every offensive category. The team was 28th in runs last season and in the bottom five in batting average as well as on base percentage. The pitching was so-so and while they were in the top 10 in quality starts, they were 21st in ERA and now they will be looking to bounce back from that. The team was also in the top 10 in batting average allowed and now they come in with Edwin Jackson pitching the second game against Charlie Morton.
The Pirates had Jeff Locke leading the team in ERA and while they were not an offensive juggernaut, they made the playoffs with 94 wins and ended up ranked 20th in runs and 22nd in batting average. The pitching was excellent, coming in the top three in ERA and the top two last season in batting average allowed and they were also in the top 10 in WHIP and the Pirates are hoping for a repeat of that performance from the mound from their top pitchers.
Check here for the Cubs and Pirates live coverage from ESPN.com on Monday.