The season so far….American League
Thanks to a cracked laptop screen and a computer repair shop that decided to close for nearly a month just after I handed it in, it’s been a wee while since I’ve written a baseball article for you guys. Have you missed me? (Just humour me and say yes, eh?).
To jump back on the horse, so to speak, I thought I’d take a quick look at how the MLB season has gone so far. A first trimester report, if you will. Without further ado, here goes…..
AL East
Who’d have thunk that the Red Sox and Yankees would have spent large sections of the first fifty games being the cellar dwellers in this division? The only thing less probable was for the Orioles to jump out to a 29-17 record. Oh, wait a minute. Going into June, all five teams were on the right side of the win-loss column, creating a very competitive division.
The surprise Orioles have lost five in a row and are still tied atop the division with a 29-22 record. Prior to the season, I stated that for the Orioles to be competitive, they had to vastly improve their pitching. While their starters have been reasonable, their bullpen has been simply sensational. No fewer than five pitchers have appeared in double figure games and recorded a sub 2.00 ERA. However, injuries are beginning to take their toll on the team. Key men Nick Markakis, Taylor Teagarden and Matt Lidstrom are currently on the DL and a five game skid will need to be overturned promptly.
Tied atop the division are the Tampa Bay Rays, who, to quote ex-Arizona Cardinals head coach Denny Green ‘are who we thought they were.’ With a strong rotation and lethal line-up, it’s not much of a surprise to see the Rays thriving. Matt Moore has failed to live up to the hype with a 1-5 record along with a 4.76 ERA, but the rest of the rotation are certainly doing their fair share, with James Shields having the worst ERA at 3.75. Add to that a terrific looking Fernando Rodney closing the door and the Rays have themselves the second best pitching staff in the American League. Now, if they could just do something about their .239 team batting average! The Blue Jays are there or there abouts, with a fairly middling team reflected perfectly in their 27-24 record. The main talking point in Canada this season has been the inability to close, with Cordero and Santos (currently on the DL) going 4-of-9 in save opportunities before Casey Janssen took over and has added some stability with a 5-of-6 success rate.
The Yankees and the Red Sox have had both positives and negatives to start the season. For the Yankees, Mariano Rivera is out for the year after suffering a freak injury shagging fly balls before a game, while for the Red Sox, the Bobby V era doesn’t seem to be going down too well. Disharmony with Kevin Youkilis (and others) is a constant storyline, while Josh Beckett seems to have gone off the rails somewhat.
In New York, Rivera isn’t the only injury concern, with speedster Brett Gardner having played only nine games thus far, but old man Jeter is looking mighty fine with a .336 average just now. Meanwhile, in Boston another old man, David Ortiz, is looking even finer. A dozen homers and a .318 average clearly proof that ‘Big Papi’ still has it. Both the Yankees and the Red Sox may not be in the best position right now, but experience tells us it would take a fool to write them off.
AL Central
If the East is looking good, the Central is looking anything but. Detroit have flattered to deceive, despite an impressive opening fortnight or so, and currently lie in third place with a 24-27 record. Surely, when it’s all said and done, a team that features Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder will reach the play-offs. Stranger things have happened though.
To suggest that a combined 17 homers in the opening 51 games is a disappointment for Cabrera and Fielder just shows the ability of the pair. Meanwhile the somewhat unfashionable outfield pair of Austin Jackson and Andy Dirks have been sensational, and, more importantly haven’t been arrested for drunkenly spouting anti-Semitic comments like teammate Delmon Young. On the mound, Scherzer and Porcello are dragging things down, with a combined 5.38 ERA in 21 starts, while closer Jose Valverde’s ERA isn’t far off 4.50.
The Chicago White Sox are currently on an eight game winning streak, which has blasted them to the top of the division, ahead of the Cleveland Indians. Jake Peavy, oft injured in his Chicago spell, holds a 3.07 ERA in 10 starts and is probably an early season front runner for the Comeback Player of the Year Award. Unfortunately, three-fifths of the rotation hold a combined 5.35 ERA from 28 starts. Thankfully, with starting pitching like that, the bullpen and offence has been solid. Paul Konerko is leading the Majors with a .381 batting average, while Adam Dunn is proving that last season was a one-off, with 16 homers so far. Dayan Viciedo and the fearless A.J. Pierzynski are also performing well.
While a poor start got us questioning whether the Indians run last year was a fluke, an impressive May has us believing it probably wasn’t. Had it not been for the hot run of the White Sox, Cleveland would be sitting atop the division at four games over .500. Chris Perez had a couple of poor outings, but his stats are solid enough (16-of-17 saves, 2.66 ERA), while Derek Lowe is another early season Comeback candidate. Like so many AL teams, the rotation has been iffy at best, but the bullpen has generally been lights out with Pestano and Hagadone in particular throwing good stuff.
At the bottom of the division are the Twins and the Royals. For Minnesota, it has all been about the starting pitching. Prior to Liriano’s six shutout innings on Wednesday, the five man rotation that started the season had combined for a 7.62 ERA in 171.1 innings and 35 starts. P.J Walters, Scott Diamond and Cole DeVries have come in and combined for 2.61 ERA in 69 innings and 11 starts. That really does say it all.
The Royals have, yet again, not lived up to expectations. Their starting pitching is poor, despite a solid and overworked bullpen. Offensively, Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon, two vital cogs, are hitting .204 and .237 respectively. Little wonder, alas, that they sit seven games under .500. Remarkably they are 16-11 on the road, but 5-17 at home.
AL West
The main storyline in the AL West this season has been the struggles of Albert Pujols. Yep, you read that right. Albert has been struggling. Until recently, that is. After a game against division rivals Oakland on 14th May, the several time NL MVP had hit one homer and was batting .197. Then he went and hit seven homers in his next 16 games and all became well in this war torn, economically challenged world.
And as Albert struggled, so too did the Angels. Being 5.5 games behind the Rangers at the end of May isn’t actually nearly as bad as it could have been. Using the 14th May again as the guideline, the Angels were 8 games back with a 15-21 record. Since then, L.A have gone 11-5 and are currently sitting at .500.
It’s not all been doom and gloom for the Halos, as Mike Trumbo is flat out playing. He leads the team in average (.348) and homers (10), while Jered Weaver notched a no-hitter earlier in the season and anchors a starting rotation that owns a more than respectable 3.41 ERA.
Despite a testing off-season, Josh Hamilton leads the Majors with 21 home runs, which included a ridiculous spell of nine homers in six games earlier this month. The Rangers currently lead the Majors in runs, batting average, slugging and on base percentage, which combined with a decent, if not lights out, pitching performance, gets you top of the pile in the American League and a 31-20 record heading into June.
Pretty much everything is going right for the Rangers thus far. All the key players are healthy and contributing as expected, while Yu Darvish and Joe Nathan have both settled in nicely following shaky starts to their Texas careers. Darvish leads the team in wins and ERA, while Nathan has given up only a solo homer in his last 17.2 innings.
As with the Royals and Twins in the Central, there is nothing but misery to report for Seattle and Oakland. The A’s are on an eight game skid and their one true offensive weapon and box office draw, Yoenis Cespedes, is on the DL. For Seattle, King Felix is but a one man tribe on the pitching staff and offensively they have been woeful for what seems like the entire decade. They are, however, coming off a 21-8 win over division leading Texas, but a .234 team batting average is better only than the .210 hitting Oakland Athletics.
And if by magic, we come to those very same Oakland Athletics. Josh Reddick is leading the team in hitting at .266. That’s leading the team, folks. Next up, at .245 is $36 million man Yoenis Cespedes and reserve outfielder Collin Cowgill. There really is no way to paint a pretty picture of the A’s offence. In many ways, one may argue that it’s a credit to the pitching staff that they are only seven games under .500. Parker and McCarthy have sub 3.00 ERAs in 16 combined starts, but McCarthy is currently on the DL, while the bullpen has been very solid. Jarrod Parker has a 2.88 ERA and has recorded just one win in his seven starts, that pretty much sums up the run support.
There you have it, the American League so far. Hopefully it wont be another four weeks until the next article!
