The season opened on April 5, with a somewhat unusual game: Minnesota at Seattle. It was only Seattle's second year in the league, and in their first year, they were as awful as expansion franchises used to be: 64-98...and they did NOT finish last. Minnesota had actually been decent the year before, finishing 17.5 games back, but with a record 7 games over .500.
Minnesota
Minnesota had a different look to start the 1978 season. Lyman Bostock, who hit a robust .336 in 1977, with 14 HR, 102 R, 90 RBI and 16 SB, had become a free agent at the end of the '77 season. At age 27, he was in his prime. The California Angels quickly signed him.
Bostock had mostly manned CF, with some games in LF. Dan Ford, the regular right fielder in 1977, moved to center field in 1978. It's interesting that Ford would become a free agent at the end of 1978, and would sign with California to replace Bostock, who was killed in September 1978 in a shooting incident.
Hosken Powell, a 25 year old first round draft pick (3d overall in 1975) was brought up to play right field. He would manage only an 84 OPS+, compared to Bostock's 144 in 1977 and 113 in 1978. Left field was to be manned by Willie Norwood, a backup to Larry Hisle in 1977. Hisle took his own 144 OPS+ to Milwaukee via free agency.
Bostock mostly led off, but also hit cleanup at times...an unusual situation. Hisle mostly hit cleanup, but he moved all over the order, including leadoff, 3d, 5th and 6th. In any event, they were key parts of the team. Powell would start the season as the leadoff man, but Norwood would be down in the 8 spot. The rest of the lineup remained stable.
Minnesota's pitching, ranked 12th out of 14 teams in 1977, lost Pete Redfern from the starting rotation (bumping him to the bullpen), but replaced him with 21 year old Roger Erickson -- no relation to the later Twin Scott Erickson. Roger had been drafted in the 3d round...the year before!
Minnesota had a strong closer in 1977 (the unknown Tom Johnson), but the rest of the bullpen was horrible. Johnson had to pitch 146 innings, all in relief. He was replaced in 1978 by Mike Marshall, a star reliever who regularly threw more than 100 IP a year. Johnson threw only 33 innings in 1978, and was mostly ineffective.
As for defense, Minnesota ranked 10th out of 14 teams in 1977 and did nothing to improve -- and in fact, lost ground in center field, where Bostock had good range and Ford did not.
Seattle
The Mariners had been 10th in the league in runs scored in 1977, with a pretty forgettable lineup. Danny Meyer had a decent year at 1b, with 22 HR and 90 RBI, but a weak OPS. Ruppert Jones, who would have a good major league career thereafter, was an above average hitter in CF, and cranked 24 homers, which would turn out to be his career high. Leroy Stanton, whose baseball card I cannot even picture, was the team stud with 27 HR and 90 RBIs.
The rest of the hitting was pretty bad, particularly at DH where the combination of Juan Bernhardt and Dave Collins managed an OPS+ of around 65. At least Collins was a rabbit on the bases. Same situation at 2b, where Jose Baez and Julio Cruz produced an OPS+ of about 75, but Cruz was a big time base stealer. They also suffered with Craig Reynolds' bat at SS. Reynolds would play 15 years, mostly with Houston, but only had one worse year at the plate than 1977.
In 1978, the lineup would be much the same. Bruce Bochte, a pretty good hitter, took over in left for Steve Braun. Leon Roberts took over in RF for Stanton, and Stanton moved to DH. That would seem to be a hitting upgrade, except Stanton fell apart. He went from a 130 OPS+ in 1977 to an atrocious 46 (!!) in 330+ plate appearances. He never played again. Bochte would fill in often at DH, with Tom Paciorek playing LF on those days. Paciorek, of course, went on to be a well-known broadcaster with the White Sox, as Hawk Harrelson's partner on WGN.
But it's opening day, and the changes look positive in the lineup on this day. Their opening day lineup would stay the same for four games, and then Darrell Johnson would abandon it, never to return to that lineup for the final 158 games.
As you might expect on an expansion team, the pitching in 1977 was awful, finishing last in the league. Except for a good closer in Enrique Romo, nearly every pitcher was substandard, and the rotation was uniformly bad. How's this for a rotation: Paul Abbott (had both hands), Dick Pole (great name, now a pitching coach for the Reds), Gary Wheelock, Rick Jones, Paul Mitchell (not the shampoo), Stan Thomas and Bob Galasso. They did get three starts from a young Rick Honeycutt, who went on to a nice career with the Dodgers and as Eck's setup man in Oakland.
So, with plenty of room for improvement, the Mariners did almost nothing to improve. Honeycutt would be a regular starter in 1978, and so would Byron McLaughlin. They did not pitch well, though. Abbott, Pole and Mitchell returned, with the same results, and they threw in Jim Colborn (now a pitching coach for the Pirates). Headed for last in ERA again.
Seattle's defensive efficiency was average in 1977, so with relatively few changes to the lineup, the same could be expected in 1978. Doesn't turn out that way, but hey, we don't know that yet.
Opening Day Game
Oh yeah, that. Well, not much happened. Seattle won 3-2, in a pitching duel between Dave Goltz (Min) and Glenn Abbott (Sea). Goltz threw a complete game. Abbott only went 6 1/2, but the closer Romo went 2 2/3 innings -- yeah, closers were different then -- for the save.
Probably the two weakest hitters in the game, Rob Wilfong at 2b for Minnesota, and Craig Reynolds at SS for Seattle had the best games. Wilfong was 2-for-3 and Reynolds was 3-for-4 with two RBI and a homer. Hosken Powell was 1-for-4 in his major league debut.
