Will All the Doubters Please Sit Down

Will All the Doubters Please Sit Down

 

 

Before the 2014 season began, numerous prognosticators, myself included, questioned whether the Braves would be able to replicate their pitching susccess due to the injuries their pitching staff was piling up. Well, the season has started and the team has kindly told all of us to sit down and shut up. Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy need Tommy John Surgery? No big deal. Gavin Floyd and Mike Minor starting the year on the DL? So what? Atlanta has proven that with a lot of skill and just a little bit of luck, they very well may be the team to beat in the National League.

Julio Teheran was pegged from the beginning to be a star for this team and he has not disappointed. He is a frontline starter and ace in every sense of the word. The late signing of Ervin Santana has shown that Spring Training can be overrated. Santana, after having a good year in the American League last year enters the National League and does what most guys in that situation do, pitches phenomenally. His haircut may make him look like he works at Good Burger and wants to take your order but his stuff is nasty. He realized his best option was signing a one year deal and facing facts that he wasn’t going to get the money he was looking for, but from what he’s shown so far, he will end up getting that money anyway. Alex Wood is a good young mid rotation starter and has struck out 20 batters in 21 innings. He gives the Braves good versatility because his stuff can translate well to the bullpen down the line or if the Braves get back to full strength and want to trade Wood he will command a big return. 

So far nothing really unexpected has happened or been talked about but now is when things get interesting. Anyone who predicted the starts to the year that David Hale and Aaron Harang are having, please go down to your local market and play the lotto. The production these guys are giving the Braves is spectacular and they are doing a fine job of holding the spots of Minor and Floyd. Once Minor returns Hale should shift to the bullpen, which surprisngly has not been Atlanta’s strong suit this year, giving them a good arm to improve the numbers.

The Braves could very well run away with the NL East again this year as the Nationals, who were seen as the favorite and a superior team, have had some injuries and are having trouble getting going. It also doesn’t help that Matt Williams and upper management don’t seem to have a problem batting Bryce Harper low in the order where he cannot be as effective. Once the bullpen rights itself and somewhat returns to form this is going to be a very dangerous team. Badstreet USA will be rocking this summer and the competition will be chopped down to size.

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The Week in Review

The Week in Review

 

 

Another week has come and gone in the 2014 season and while we still don’t know what exactly to make of these teams, the picture is becoming just the slightest bit clearer. Small sample size still reigns supreme but the small sample is getting larger. Teams that looked good last week might not look so good this week, and vice versa (looking at you Marlins and Brewers). Let’s get to the recap.

 

AL EAST

-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.

 That does it for week number two in the Week in Review. Hope you all enjoyed reading and always, follow us on twitter @changingspeeds for all your coverage of the national pastime.

The Hot Start of the Milwaukee Brewers

The Hot Start of the Milwaukee Brewers

 

The season might only be two weeks old and records and stats are still falling into the dreaded small sample size argument, but one thing has been clear. The Milwaukee Brewers are the biggest surprise of the season thus far. The success of the Brewers has been the result of just how dominant their pitching has been thus far. Both their starters and their relievers have shut down the opposing lineups on their way to baseball’s best record and an 8 game win streak.

Led by Yovani Gallardo who is 2-0 with a 0.96 ERA, every starter has stepped their game up and answered the challenge. Having a 6-0 record on the road, including a three game sweep of the World Champion Red Sox in their home opening series has shown that Milwaukee will not be rattled by the atmosphere outside of Miller Park.

The season may still be young and Milwaukee may be proving they should be taken seriously, but in order to be a contender there are still some things that the Brewers need to count on. Firstly, once the pitching comes back to Earth and starts evening out, how will they respond? It’s easy to brush things off and not second guess yourself when everything is going your way. Secondly, they need to stay healthy. This is not a very deep team and there isn’t any real help waiting in the minors to answer the call if needed. Last but not least they have to hope that the platoon of Lyle Overbay and Mark Reynolds can provide them with just enough offense as to not become a black hole in the lineup. They can play well for stretches but asking prolonged success from either of those guys is way too much. Hopefully Ron Roenicke will be able to find the right balance.

Everyone pegged the NL Central as St. Louis’ to lose and they may still be right because as stated before there is certainly a long way to go. However, with the Brewers being able to build a lead now while riding this high, it has certainly put them in a very advantageous position. Cincinnati has not looked good thus far and the Pirates have gotten good pitching but inconsistent offense.  The Brewers very well could find themselves fighting for a second place finish and what could certainly be a wild card berth in the playoffs.

We will be back tomorrow with the Week in Review. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @changingspeeds for all our coverage of the national pastime.