Texas Rangers Name 2025 Opening Day Starter for Showdown Against Red Sox

The Texas Rangers have named their Opening Day starter for the 2025 season, a former two-time All-Star and multi-time World Series champion.

Jeremy Trottier | Mar 16, 2025

Texas Rangers starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi pitches during the third inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium / Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

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Texas Rangers

The Texas Rangers have made many pitching decisions this offseason, with superstar Jacob deGrom being moved to the fifth rotation spot to protect him as he ramps up, and two starters in Jon Gray and Cody Bradford ruled out for the start of the year.

This leaves the rotation somewhat in flux as Opening Day rapidly approaches, where the Rangers will take on the Boston Red Sox on March 27.

One bit of positive news is that Texas has named its Opening Day starter, with veteran Nathan Eovaldi taking the ball for this first matchup, as reported by Kennedi Landry of MLB.com.

The decision was somewhat clear once Bruce Bochy decided to place deGrom in the fifth rotation spot, as Eovaldi was the clear-cut favorite to kick things off in 2025.

This will be Eovaldi's fifth Opening Day start, and he is the first Rangers player to make multiple of them in a row since Kevin Millwood back in the early 2000s.

Eovaldi had a solid 2024 season, producing a 3.80 ERA, 1.107 WHIP, 166 strikeouts to 42 walks, and a 12-8 overall record as a starter in 29 games.

Texas would prefer to see him back in 2023 form, where he was an All-Star with two complete games, a shutout and a 3.63 ERA to his name. But he has been a solid contributor each and every year since he's been part of this franchise.

Things will likely rotate a bit throughout the season once deGrom gets back into the swing of things and has time to really get used to the workload again.

With that said, Eovaldi gets the ball for now and will have the opportunity to make a statement against his former team when Opening Day arrives.

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