Published April 6, 2015. Follow me on Twitter.

The 2015 season will begin for the Atlanta Braves today at 4:10 EDT when they visit the Marlins. For the second consecutive season, Julio Teheran will get the start on opening day. But the lineup will include just three other players from the team that lost 2-0 a year ago in Milwaukee. But that's nothing compared to the the lineup that suited up on opening day in 1991.


Only one player, Jeff Treadway, was in the lineup for the second consecutive opening day. 

Opening day is a occasion that is dripping with tradition. With the help of Baseball-Reference, I was able to go back to 1914 to see each defensive lineup the Braves have utilized on opening day. Overall, in that time, they are a pretty miserable 40-60 with one game, back in 1924 in Philadelphia, called after eleven innings and a tie score. Here are some other interesting facts. All numbers are accurate since 1914.

Hank Aaron has played in the most opening days for the Braves with 20, though they were not consecutive as he missed the 1965 home opener, cutting his longest consecutive streak to 12. With that mind, the longest consecutive streak of starting on opening day as a Brave is shared by Eddie Mathews and Chipper Jones with 15 each. Chipper also ranks second with most opening day starts with 16, but missed his sophomore follow-up in 1996. 

No one took the ball as the starting pitcher more often than Warren Spahn, who held the honor ten times between 1955 and 1964, including a six year run that also ranks as the most consecutive starts.

 

The Braves have scored at least ten runs on opening day seven times, including April 5, 2010 when they pounded the Cubs 16-5 in Jason Heyward's first game. That game also marks the biggest run difference in a given game that the Braves won. In yet another sign that the Braves are a completely different team, nobody from that that lineup will be in today's lineup. They've also given up at least ten runs eight times, but that's softened a bit by winning two of them. Their worst loss on opening day came in 1938 when the New York Giants hammered the Boston Braves behind Mel Ott for a 13-1 win. 

Baseball's scheduling department has done a much better job at not scheduling the same opponent in back-to-back years. The last time it happened was 1995-96 when the Braves beat the Giants in back-to-back years (and scored 12 and 10 runs in those games). The last time they faced a team in three consecutive years was when Milwaukee battled the Pirates from 1958-1960, winning twice behind Spahn. 

While the Braves are 20 games under .500 on opening day, they have been much better in recent years. Since 1981, the Braves are 20-14, including a five-game win streak from 1992-96 that represents the most consecutive wins on opening day. This string of positive results was welcomed after the Braves dropped nine consecutive opening day games between 1972-1980. In fact, they only won one opening day game in the 70's - 1971's 7-4 win over the Reds. 

Individually, Hall of Famer Greg Maddux's first start as a Brave came on opening day in 1993 against the team he had defected from, the Chicago Cubs. He worked into the ninth and threw 8.1 scoreless ball as the Braves won 1-0. 

Jordan Schafer and Jason Heyward both homered on opening day in back-to-back years (2009-10). Heyward became the second player in MLB history to do the feat in his first at-bat of his career one year and the first at-bat of the year in his second year when he homered off Livan Hernandez in 2011. 

In 1974, Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth's record for Most Homeruns in History with a three-run bomb on opening day. Interestingly, the Braves start a trio of managers that followed Aaron in the order that day - Dusty Baker, Davey Johnson, and Johnny Oates. They would lose in the 11th to the Big Red Machine. Aaron would pull ahead of The Babe four days later at home against the Dodgers. 

Finally, the Boston Braves had a memorable opening day in 1946. They stopped a streak of three consecutive losses on opening day by beating the Brooklyn Dodgers behind Johnny Sain and also experienced a furious uproar from their fans after cool weather failed to adequately dry the recently painted outfield bleachers. The Braves would have to make a public apology and pay the dry-cleaning bills of disgruntled fans who sat in the red paint.

Regardless of what could be said about the last several months since the Braves ended 2014, I think it's safe to say that any baseball fan is happy today is finally here. Let's go Braves and Happy Opening Day!