PHILADELPHIA – Against Philadelphia lefty Christopher Sanchez, the NL runner-up in the Cy Young voting in 2025, the Rangers are going to lean to the right.
The only left-handed hitters in the opening day lineup are Brandon Nimmo, Corey Seager and Josh Smith. Evan Carter will not start on opening day, replaced in the lineup by Sam Haggerty, who has tremendous splits against lefties. Haggerty will play left field with Wyatt Langford moving to center.
The Rangers visit the Phillies at 3:15 p.m. CT. The game can be watched/streamed on Rangers Sports Network/Victory+.
Sanchez held lefties to a .189/.246/.233/.478 slash line last year. The OPS against lefties was the third lowest allowed by a left-handed starter with at least 15 starts last year; it was just a tad better than Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, who won the AL Cy Young.
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It also means that Andrew McCutchen will make his Rangers debut on opening day. He will be the DH over Joc Pederson. McCutchen is a career .900 OPS guy against left-handers and will be opening against a team with whom he spent three seasons (2019-21).
The other tweak to the lineup is that Danny Jansen will start behind the plate instead of Kyle Higashioka.
Higashioka has five career at-bats against Sanchez and is 0 for 5 with three strikeouts; Jansen is 2 for 5. Not a huge sample size, but it still certainly favors Jansen. Jansen also had a better OPS against lefties than Higashioka as a whole last year, .742 to .686.
The Ranger with the most experience against Sanchez is right fielder Brandon Nimmo, who is 5 for 18 with three walks for a .350 OBP in 21 plate appearances.
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The full opening day lineup:
RF Brandon Nimmo
CF Wyatt Langford
SS Corey Seager
1B Jake Burger
RF Andrew McCutchen
3B Josh Jung
2B Josh Smith
C Danny Jansen
LF Sam Haggerty
SP Nathan Eovaldi
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