This wasn’t a surprise, but Craig Counsell officially named Justin Steele the Opening Day starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs to begin the 2024 regular season against the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers.
The 28-year-old pitcher is coming off an All-Star year, ending the 2023 season with a 3.06 ERA in 173.1 innings. No doubt about it, Justin Steele has established himself as the ace in the Cubs rotation and has earned the honor of Opening Day starter.
Here’s the jaw-dropping stat and how Steele’s Opening Day start against the Rangers on March 28 will be a first not just for him personally, but also in Chicago Cubs history.
Steele, who was picked by the Cubs in the fifth round of the 2014 draft out of high school, will become the first ever left-handed starting pitcher drafted by the team to start on the mound on Opening Day.
No other way to put it, that’s absolutely crazy! Think about all the pitchers drafted every single year and it’s taken until 2024 for a lefty to make an Opening Day start for the Cubs?! Wow.
That being said, and no one should take anything away from Steele’s honor here, but it’s also kinda embarrassing it’s taken this long for this to happen for the Cubs. I know, I know, MLB draft is insane, a crapshoot, but you would’ve thought someone, anyone, could have broken through before this season.
I guess in a way this should make Cubs fans even more grateful to have Justin Steele on the team because it’s not like he was a guaranteed star prospect coming up through the system. He was drafted in 2014, made his MLB debut in 2021 and didn’t begin his breakout in the majors until the second half of the 2022 season, eight years after his selection.
Nevertheless, incredible. Congrats to Justin Steele, who will hopefully make plenty more Opening Day starts in a Cubs uniform.
