HANOVER, N.H. — The 2022 Major League Baseball season opens today, and former Dartmouth pitcher Kyle Hendricks '12 will have the distinction of throwing the first pitch when the Chicago Cubs host the Milwaukee Brewers at 2:20 p.m. (EDT) today.
This is the right-hander's third consecutive opening-day start, generally reserved for the ace of the pitching staff. Hendricks is beginning his ninth season in the big leagues, all with the Cubs, and he has posted a career record of 83-55 with an ERA of 3.36 spanning over 1,200 innings. With his next win on the mound, he will have more MLB victories than any Dartmouth pitcher, and he is the only Big Green pitcher to strike out more than 1,000 batters (1,013) at the major league level.
Hendricks won't be the only Dartmouth graduate to grace an MLB roster this season. His classmate, Cole Sulser '12, was traded from the Baltimore Orioles to the Miami Marlins four days ago and will be on the opening-day roster. In his first three big league seasons, Sulser has a 6-9 record with 13 saves with a 3.18 ERA over 86 appearances spanning 93.1 innings with the Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays.
The Cubs-Brewers game will be televised live nationally on MLB Network, while the Marlins will play their season opener tomorrow in San Francisco against the Giants tomorrow at 4:10 p.m. (EDT).
Notes: Both Hendricks and Sulser were named to the All-Ivy League First Team in 2011 … Hendricks threw a complete-game shutout in his first opening-day assignment in the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign, allowing just three hits to the Brewers … Sulser will be the second Big Green alum to play for the Marlins, the first being Ed Lucas '04 from 2013-14.