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Nats Opener History and Trivia updated for 2025

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Sorry MacKenzie, you can’t win ’em all! Photo wikipedia

Welcome to the 2025 Baseball Season!

Well, it isn’t every day you get a 6ip, 1hit, 0run, 13K, 0BB effort from a starter and lose, but that’s what the Nats managed to do yesterday in their home and season opener against the hated Phillies. MacKenzie Gore certainly carved through the Phillies lineup, each of whom struck out at least once on the day (Philadelphia made 19 of their 30 outs via the whiff).

As I mentioned in the comments, It’s rather ironic that both of the Philly homers on the day came from ex-Nats (Harper and Schwarber). I wish them well.

One random little artifact I maintain for some reason is a collection of our Opening Day and Home Opener data, like attendance, box scores, W/L, etc. Here’s that information for review with some trivia sprinkled in.

Home Opener Attendance and Weather through the years

2025’s attendance was up from previous years, a good sign for the team as it tries to convince the town that it may be close to competing again. We’re still well below the debut years of the stadium (I think they’ve removed a bunch of seats since the stadium opened in 2008 so the capacity will never be back in the 45k range), and the home opener record will likely always be the 2005 debut game of the franchise in DC, 45,596 at the old RFK, as people fought past protestors and secret service to often get into the game in the middle of the 2nd inning. (Note; the record for the franchise is record for the stadium still remains 2012 NLDS Game 5, or the “Storen” game, of 45,966).

Best and Worst weather for a home opener? Yesterday was 57 and sunny; that’s pretty good. I’d probably say the best weather for a home opener remains the “Phillies Invasion” game back in 2010, though we’ve had a slew of mid-70s and sunny openers in our history. The worst weather for a home opener? probably the 2011 41-degree afternoon game, though it must have been brutal to sit through the 2022 opener 4+ hour delay). Reminder from 2020: the 90-degree day was b/c the season was delayed into the summer.

  • 2025: 41,231 (4:05 thurs game, 57, sunny, slight wind)
  • 2024: 40,405 (4:05 tues game, 53, cloudy, slight wind)
  • 2023: 35,756 (105 thurs game, 45 degrees and sunny)
  • 2022: 35,052 (7:05 thurs game (pushed back from 4:05, then delayed to 8:21 weather. 52 degrees, cloudy, rainy)
  • 2021: 4,801 (4:05 tuesday game, 74 degrees, partly cloudy, 5mph wind)
  • 2020: 0 (7:09 thurs game, 90, partly cloudy, 7mph wind)
  • 2019: 42,263 (1:07 thurs game, 56, partly cloudy, no wind)
  • 2018: 42,477 (1:08 thurs game, 42, partly cloudy, slight wind)
  • 2017: 42,744 (1:05 monday game, 66 and cloudy, slight wind)
  • 2016: 41,650 (4:05 thursday game, 60 and 1.5hr rain delay)
  • 2015: 42,295 (4:05 monday game, 75 and gorgeous)
  • 2014: 42,834 (1:05 friday game, 50s and overcast)
  • 2013: 45,274 (1:05 monday game, 60 and beautiful)
  • 2012: 40,907 (1:05 thursday game 56, partly cloudy)
  • 2011: 39,055 (1:05 thursday game, 41 degrees and overcast)
  • 2010: 41,290 (1pm game monday, beautiful weather 80s and sunny): This was Phillies Invasaion
  • 2009: 40,386 (3pm game on a monday, chilly 53degr and overcast).
  • 2008: 39,389 (season and stadium opener), 8pm sunday night, Braves, nat’l tv clear but cold.
  • 2007: 40,389 (in rfk, 1pm game vs Florida, 72 degrees
  • 2006: 40,516 (in rfk, tuesday day game vs Mets, 72 degr and sunny)
  • 2005: 45,596 (in rfk, debut of entire franchise, 62 degr and clear, evening game).

Home opener Results and Box Scores

The Nats are just 6-15 all time through 2025 in their home openers, a pretty interesting stat given that for most of the 2010s they were one of the best teams in the sport. We nearly always play a divisional rival in our home opener: of our 21 home openers, just 4 have come against non-divisional rivals (including the weird 2020 Covid year and our franchise opener, which was delayed after a huge road trip to start the season to allow the stadium add’l prep time).

Nats Season Openers.
We are slightly better in Season openers: Record: 8-13. We’ve been home 13 times, away 8 times.