On Thursday, former Troy Trojan Brandon Lockridge became the first former Trojan since 2022 to start in a Major League Baseball game on opening day. 

On April 2, 2002, Troy Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Rivera started on opening day for the Detroit Tigers. Rivera went on to play a total of eight seasons in the MLB. Lockridge started at left field in the San Diego Padres’ opening game against the Atlanta Braves on March 27. 

Lockridge and the Padres earned an opening day win over the Atlanta Braves on March 27. While Lockridge went 0-for-2 at the plate in his first game this season, he also earned two putouts with a perfect fielding percentage on defense. 

Lockridge played for Troy from 2016 through 2018, earning All-Sun Belt honors as a second baseman in in 2017 and an outfielder in 2018. He became Troy’s second ever ABCA/Rawlings Gold Glove winner in 2018. Lockridge holds the record for triples in a season and career at Troy. He held a career .306 batting average at Troy with 38 doubles, 14 triples, 12 home runs, 101 RBIs and 135 runs. On defense, he held a career .968 fielding percentage with 405 putouts and 288 assists.  

Lockridge was drafted in the fifth round of the 2018 MLB Draft by the New York Yankees, becoming the sixth Trojan ever to be selected in the first five rounds of the draft.  

During his career in the minors, Lockridge played for the Staten Island Yankees (A-) and GLC Yankees West (Rookie) in 2018, the Charleston RiverDogs (Single A) in 2019 and both the Somerset Patriots (AA) and Hudson Valley Renegades (A+) in 2021. In 2022, he played for Somerset and then made the move to AAA – the highest level of play in the minors – for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. 
Lockridge started 2024 with Scranton/Wilkes Barre, playing 72 games there. He had been a member of the Yankees’ minor league for his entire career before being traded to the Padres in July of 2024. He then began playing for the Padres’ AAA affiliate, El Paso. In 32 games with the Chihuahuas he boasted a .325 batting average with a .423 slugging percentage and .420 on-base percentage. He’s earned six doubles, two homers, 13 RBIs and 24 runs.  

He was called up to the Padres in September of last year and played in 12 total games, earning his first career home run on Sept. 28 in the regular season finale.