Quick Facts from Sunday's Braves Season Opener

Baseball is a game of a dizzying array of statistics, and Sunday's Atlanta Braves season opener in Philly was chock full of statistical oddities.

This first note builds upon the post I did last month about the diversity in just our starting rotation. According to Major League Baseball...

The Braves are the most geographically diverse club in the majors, based on the birth countries of players comprising the opening day rosters of the 30 MLB clubs...Eight different countries and territories are represented on the Braves’ roster: Australia, Cuba, Curacao, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau...

• In his first start as a Brave, Derek Lowe, posted 8.0 shutout innings and allowed just two hits... Only one other starting pitcher in the history of Citizens Bank Park has thrown eight or more innings of two-hit, shutout baseball: Boston’s Tim Wakefield, on June 24, 2005.
• Lowe became only the third player since 1921 to make his Braves debut as a starting pitcher in the team’s season opener...The others to do it over that span were Gary Gentry (acquired in a trade from the Mets) in 1973 and Greg Maddux (signed as free agent) in 1993.
• Jordan Schafer became the first player in baseball history to homer in his first major-league plate appearance on opening day against the defending World Champions...One other player did that in his major-league debut, though not in his first time to the plate...The Cubs’ Roberto Pena homered in his first game in the majors, in his second at-bat, off Bob Gibson of the defending champion Cardinals in the 1965 season opener (April 12 at Wrigley Field).
• Brian McCann, Jeff Francoeur and Schafer each homered the first time they came to the plate on Sunday...Over the last 60 years, only two other big-league teams hit as many as three home runs during the first time through its batting order in a season opener...The Red Sox (Jose Offerman, Trot Nixon and Jason Varitek) and Twins (Jacque Jones, David Ortiz and Brian Buchanan) did it on the same day -- April 1, 2002.
• Garret Anderson made his Braves debut Sunday after playing 2,013 games in his career, all for the Angels...Anderson is the first man to play at least 2,000 games for his original major-league club before playing for another team since Dwight Evans joined the Orioles in 1991 after 19 seasons and 2,505 games with the Red Sox.

Open thread tonight lauches at 7pm ET, the game is on Peachtree TV.