David Hernandez pitched himself out of our dimension

Opening Day was a confusing time for everyone, with us wanting to celebrate the return of baseball while also understanding that we would be forced to watch the Phillies and Reds play it. We'd had several months to come to terms with this fact and so, as things went to crap on day one, we were disappointed, but far from shocked.

Going into the season, my thoughts on the bullpen were far more ludicrously mediocre than the apparently far more correct John Stolnis (as we discussed on The Felske Files), who thought it could be the worst one in baseball. He wasn't alone. As Jeremy Hellickson left his start with a one-run lead intact, it didn't take an expert to see where this was going, moon-eyed optimism or not.

Jeanmar Gomez was the first man out of the bullpen gate (and the only current reliever who had been with the team on Opening Day last year). He allowed no runs and even struck Jay Bruce. Then David Hernandez came on, allowed a walk, a double, and a walk, and fled the scene James Russell replaced him and was not able to clean up the mess, but at least all of the runs that scored were credited to Hernandez (to a certain point, then he started earning runs of his own).

The beauty of early season stats is that they stretch very dramatically in either direction, which is why "small sample sizes" can skew numbers in general. It's an anomaly that most often occurs at the beginning of the season, so let us a revel in the fact that Hernandez, with all of his missed spots and poor luck on Monday, has blessed us with an ERA of ∞:

Crazy Stat of Day: Phillies' pitcher David Hernandez's ERA is currently infinity. pic.twitter.com/eW791z2Jc9

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 5, 2016

Other stand-ins for actual numbers in this regard include "David Hernandez's ERA is [...]" and "David Hernandez's ERA is [sound of alien winds howling across a desert planet]."