The Week in Review
-The Yankees had a very good week on the pitching side of
things. Besides Ivan Nova’s shaky outing against Baltimore, every starter
stepped up and pitched a quality game, including Nova against the Red Sox last
night. Brian McCann has finally began to see some luck. He has been hitting the
ball hard all year but couldn’t find a hole as he was hitting into the shift
every time. That’s beginning to change. Francisco Cervelli is headed to the DL
and Yangervis Solarte and Derek Jeter are dealing with leg injuries but
shouldn’t miss any time. Injuries would be the downfall of this team, they need
to stay healthy. The Red Sox lost 3 of 4 in the Bronx and have not looked sharp
coming out of the gate. There’s plenty of time to turn it around though but the
bats and arms need to wake up. Xander Boegarts is the real deal and then some.
They have a fantastic blue chipper at shortstop. Tampa Bay was dealt another
injury to their pitching staff this week when Alex Cobb had to be placed on the
15 day DL. Add him to the list along with Hellickson and Moore and the Rays
have been hit hard. Hellickson and Cobb will be back, Moore most likely not, so
Joe Maddon will have to pull some magic out of the hat to keep the team afloat
until the reinforcements are ready. The Toronto Blue Jays are enjoying a
phenomenal season from Mark Buehrle who is 3-0 with a 0.86 ERA. He has become the
de facto ace with R.A. Dickey struggling. The team has played well enough
without catalyst Jose Reyes but can that continue for a longer stretch? Down in
Baltimore the Orioles have really struggled to be consistent. No player is
swinging a very hot bat and the starters are racking up the pitch counts,
meaning the bullpen has needed to work more than they should. The bad part
about that is that the bullpen has not been very good.
AL CENTRAL
-The Kansas City Royals ended this week getting swept on the
road by the Minnesota Twins. That isn’t something a team looking to be a
contender can be doing, even early in the season. Through two weeks they only
have one home run as a team and are struggling mightily to score runs. They
will need to turn it around before they fall too far behind. The Detroit Tigers
are looking once again like the team to beat in the division but they will need
to get better production from the bullpen, the weakest part of the team thus
far. The aforementioned Twins have looked better than anyone could have
imagined thus far. The pitching has been better than anticipated so enjoy it
while it lasts. The Chicago White Sox have not gotten good production from the
back end of the rotation, which was a weak spot coming into the season. The offense
however has played very well and this team is never out of a game. Jose Abreu
has been fantastic so far but will he be able to sustain that success the
second time around facing teams? In Cleveland inconsistency has been front and
center. The starters have performed well enough including strikeout machine
Danny Salazar. Nyjer “Tony Plush” Morgan has been a good catalyst at the top of
the order but the rest of the order has not been playing well enough to drive
him in more. Once the bats wake up and stay consistent this team could be the
only challenger Detroit will have to worry about.
AL WEST
-The Seattle Mariners have come back to Earth after their
scorching offensive start, which may or may not have to do with the fact they
came back home to Safeco this week. Their pitching has been great despite two
starters on the DL with a third joining them this week. This team barely walks
and strikes out way too much. The Angels have looked good and gotten much
better pitching than anticipated. The Josh Hamilton injury hurts but between
J.B. Shuck’s offense and Colin Cowgill’s defense they could be ok. They look
like a team that could be in it for the long haul. Oakland thus far is making
me look smart for believing in them despite their big pitching injuries. The
offense has played well led by Josh Donaldson who is proving last year was no
fluke. The Astros are all pitching and no offense. They have the worst team
average and on base percentage in the majors and have played seven games where
they’ve scored two runs or fewer. The Rangers are another team that has gotten
good pitching and very little offense. Yu Darvish has been unhittable since his
return and Martin Perez looks like a solid top of the rotation lefty to pair
well with him. Prince Fielder and Shin Shoo Choo need to come alive and start
producing and this team should be fine.
NL EAST
-The NL East is still looking like it will be a two team
race but based on the record of one of those teams against the other it may not
be much of a race after all. The Washington Nationals are 7-22 in their last 29
games against the Atlanta Braves while going 52-28 in the same stretch against
the rest of the division. The talent is there but they will need to find a way
to consistently beat Atlanta when they play if they want to be a contender. The
Miami Marlins started out scorching hot playing their first six games at home
but once they hit the road everything fell apart. They went 0-6 on their road
trip losing three games apiece to Washington and Philly. The Phillies have
played above expectation thanks in large part to Chase Utley and his .500
average. Ryan Howard is showing the power swing again and will help erase some
of the bad defensive plays out of the team’s memory if he can keep connecting
for home runs.
The Mets have not looked like a team with a chance to win 90
games, the benchmark set by the organization for the season. The offense has
been dreadful and the bullpen has been even worse. There may not be a word that
can accurately describe the bullpen’s performance this season. It hasn’t been
invented yet. For all the talk of how badly their pitching staff got hit with
injuries and how much they would suffer because of it, the Atlanta Braves have
been absolutely lights out. When Aaron Harang is dominating you know something
special is going on. Ervin Santana was Cy Young like in his first start and
gives the team an innings eater with big game experience to lean on. Justin
Upton is performing this April as he did last April, and that’s to say he’s the
Human Torch he’s so on fire. He has shown an ability to start out hot but
unlike last year he needs to keep it up this season for prolonged stretches.
Freddie Freeman is playing like an MVP as well and I hope my preseason pick for
the award keeps it up.
NL CENTRAL
-The story of the NL Central this season has been the
Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers are in the midst of a 9 game win streak with
division favorite and rival St. Louis coming to town. This series will really
show how for real Milwaukee is. They are the best pitching team in baseball and
strike out less than any team in the game. They just need to hope the injury
bug doesn’t come sweeping through the clubhouse because depth is not a strong
suit of this team. The Cardinals have played well, treading above water. They
have not played their best ball yet and they still look like a team that will
challenge for supremacy once they get going. Michael Wacha is the real deal and
Adam Wainwright still has the most beautful and deadliest curve in the game. The
offense in Cincinnati came to life yesterday scoring 12 runs and if they can
stay consistent as the pitching gets healthy they could be a very dangerous
team. Tony Cingrani has been tremendous since coming up last season. In his 21
career starts he has yet to give up more than five runs and five hits in a
game. That is absolute domination, and the fact that he’s doing it with
basically one pitch makes it even more noteworthy. It’s still not 2015 in
Wrigleyville but Jeff Samardzija and Travis Wood have looked very good for the
Cubbies. Pittsburgh is still Pittsburgh. Good pitching, not much offense, and
Pedro Alvarez hitting home runs. The Pirates need to find an answer at first
base because their All-Star platoon of Sanchez and Ishikawa is not cutting it at
all.
NL WEST
-If the season ended today Angel Pagan should be a top 3 MVP
candidate in the National League. Pagan has set the table extremely well
allowing San Francisco, yes San Francisco, to become one of the more dominant
and consistent offenses in all of baseball. You know things are going well for
you offensively when your dominant pitcher has a 5 RBI game including a grand
slam, which is what the Giants got from Madison Bumgarner. My predicted
division winner the Arizona Diamondbacks have stumbled out of the gate to the
worst record in baseball. Despite having the National League leader in home
runs in Mark Trumbo and the makings of another great season from Paul
Goldschmidt this team is in serious trouble. The rest of the offense has not
played even half as well as their two boppers and the pitching has been beyond
abysmal. They can’t really use the injury excuse either when teams like Atlanta
and Oakland continue to thrive. This team is going nowhere fast. One of the
reasons the Diamondbacks have the worst record in baseball is because they have
been absolutely embarrassed by the Dodgers. Los Angeles is 5-0 against Arizona
and is turning this very heated rivalry one sided. Adrian Gonzalez is back to
his true form and Matt Kemp has managed to stay healthy for more than 3 days,
and looked very good. San Francisco will be on their tail for most if not all
of the season but Los Angeles is proving they are here to stay and will accept
nothing less than a championship. Colorado has been one of the more
inconsistent teams in the game, alternating wins and losses over their last
eight contests. They’ve also been hit by the injury bug when it comes to
pitching. Offensively they should be much better than they are but Charlie
Blackmon has settled into the leadoff spot quite nicely. Ron Burgundy’s
favorite team is once again falling into the curse of Petco Park and its “where
offense goes to die” philosophy. When you have a roster full of above average
to pretty good players and you have them play their home games in the Sahara
Desert it will no doubt carry over into their performance on the road. The one
positive is Jedd Gyorko. He hasn’t hit consistently this season but when he has
he’s showed that last year was a sign of things to come. He will be a star. Speaking
of stars, Andrew Cashner and his luxurious mullet have been exceptional so far
this season and he looks like an ace.
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