As a surprise to few (if any), 26-year-old left-hander Julio Urías has been named as the Dodgers 2023 Opening Day starter. It will be the Culiacan, Mexico native and seven-year Dodgers and MLB veteran’s first career Opening Day start.

Urías, who finished third in the 2022 National League Cy Young Award voting, will begin the Dodgers 2023 season against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium opposed D-backs right-hander Zac Gallen, who finished fifth in the 2022 NL Cy Young Award voting.

Since 1958, the Dodgers have used a different Opening Day starter than the year before only three times. However, over the last four seasons, they used left-hander Hyun Jin Ryu, right-hander Dustin May, future Hall of Fame left-hander Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler respectively to begin their season.

It was pretty much a given that Kershaw would have made his record-extending 10th Opening Day start had he not landed on Injured List for chronic and recurring back and shoulder issues. Instead, the 15-year MLB and Dodgers veteran will probably miss significant time to begin the 2023 campaign.

Urías finished the 2023 season with a 17-7 record and a National League best 2.16 ERA. In 2021 he led the MLB with 20 wins and his 37 wins over the last two seasons lead the Majors.

Urías becomes the 10th Dodger pitcher to have a 20-win season and start the next season’s Opening Day. Five of the previous nine won at least one Cy Young Award in their careers – Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser and Kershaw.

Urías joins beloved fellow left-hander Fernando Valenzuela as the only other Mexican-born pitcher in Dodger history to receive Opening Day honors, and only the eighth left-hander to do so since the team moved to LA in 1958. And at age 26, he will become the sixth-youngest Opening Day starter for the Dodgers since the move.

Ironically, three of the five Dodgers Opening Day starters with a younger Opening Day age than Urías are or will soon be enshrined in the sacred Halls of Cooperstown (Drysdale and Kershaw) or have had their number retired (Drysdale and Valenzuela).

Play Ball!

  *  *  *  *  *  *