Pablo Lopez will be Twins' Opening Day starter, Rocco Baldelli announces

Pablo Lopez will be the Twins' Opening Day starter for the third consecutive year in 2025, manager Rocco Baldelli announced Wednesday on the team's Inside Twins show.

"It'll be Pablo," Baldelli said. "I see no reason why we will not see Pablo Lopez out there on Opening Day."

That news should come as no surprise, even if Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober might also have reasonable cases to get the nod. The Twins still view Lopez as the ace of their staff despite his somewhat inconsistent performance last season.

As long as he remains healthy, Lopez will take the ball on March 27th when the Twins open their season at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. That will make him the franchise's first pitcher to start at least three consecutive Opening Days since Brad Radke did so in seven straight years from 1999-2005. Johan Santana, Carl Pavano, Ervin Santana, and Jose Berrios each did it twice in a row post-Radke, but none of their streaks reached a third year.

Lopez, acquired for Luis Arraez in a January 2023 trade with the Marlins, made an instant impact for the Twins in his first season in Minnesota. He had a 3.66 ERA and struck out 234 batters in 194 innings while earning a trip to the All-Star game. The strikeouts were the most by a Twins pitcher in a single season since Johan Santana in 2007. Lopez's numbers regressed a bit last year, as he had a 4.08 ERA and 198 Ks in 185.1 innings. Home runs were an issue for him, but his underlying metrics remained strong, which indicates he could be in line for a bounce-back 2025 campaign.

The Twins feel quite good about their rotation heading into the upcoming season. Between Lopez, Ryan, and Ober, they have one of the better trios in the game. They've also got depth behind them in Chris Paddack, David Festa, Zebby Matthews, Simeon Woods Richardson, and others.

"I really like our rotation and I like the guys that we can put together here and send out there," Baldelli said. "Joe Ryan was on his way to having a pretty spectacular season when he went down with the (shoulder) injury. He's actually doing very well right now, physically. ... Bailey Ober had an excellent, excellent season last year. That's how a rotation comes together, you need guys to do a lot of heavy lifting towards the top, and these are guys that are very capable of doing it. And we have a really interesting collection of young arms. One thing that we have that every team in baseball wants to have is a reasonably deep group of starting pitchers."

There will be at least a few differences to the Twins' Opening Day lineup on the position player side. Gone is Max Kepler, who drew eight consecutive game 1 starts in right field. Also gone from last year's opening lineup are Carlos Santana, Kyle Farmer, and Manuel Margot. The Twins have not yet added a major league free agent this offseason.