April 10-16 Weekly Update

We are roughly 3 weeks into the season and things are starting to take shape. What struggling teams are in trouble? What hot teams starts are real? Let's dive into it.

Boy oh boy did the Rays give us a show to start the season. They finally lost their winning streak but only after tying the Braves and Brewers MLB record to open the season with 13 straight wins. And I don't want to hear the whole "but their competition was weak, it's a fluke". No, they swept 4 different professional baseball teams to begin the season and that is insanely impressive.

Continuing with the Rays hot start (13-2), I do believe they are legit. Are they going to finish with 115 wins? No. But this team could easily finish the season with 95+ and win the division (even though I have them projected to miss in my preseason rankings, oops). Their pitching is deep and their offense is looking better than expected, their start is very real. The Brewers (12-5) and Twins (10-6) hot starts I also believe are very real. The pitching on both sides have been incredible giving up only 52 and 42 runs respectfully. Which is 2nd and the 3rd least amount allowed in baseball trailing only, you guessed it, the Tampa Bay Rays.

On the other hand, there are some teams with hot starts that I do believe are just hot starts. The Pittsburg Pirates being a prime example. They are currently off to a fantastic 10-7 start. While this is great, I don't see them sticking this out and being an above .500 team. Their pitching has been impressive but still suspect, their offense is lacking a bit especially after the loss of O'Neil Cruz who suffered an ankle fracture last week. They also have a negative 4 run differential which isn't always a great sign that they will stay hot. Another team who is off to a better than expected start is the Diamondbacks. While I don't expect them to fall off as hard as the Pirates will, I do expect them to get a reality check soon. They are a fun team with a lot of speedy youth. I do think they will continue to create runs on the base paths as this is probably the fastest team in baseball. But their pitching is very raw. Zac Gallen is a legit ace, but I don't have a ton of faith that Merrill Kelly will continue his success (even though he proved me wrong last year) and after him they don't have anyone noteworthy. I hope they prove me wrong because this team is a ton of fun to watch, but I still see them as a 70-74 win team and expect regression.

There are 3 teams that have gotten off to some slow starts that I'm not all that concerned about. The Padres have gone back and forth in the early going looking like stars some games and completely flopping on others. However I'm not worried about their 8-10 start. They've been playing without one of their most impactful bats and arms. Fernando Tatis has been out since 2021 with a wrist injury and a 80 game PED suspension and he's due back Thursday. They have also been without their most consistent pitching in Joe Musgrove who started the year on the IL with a broken toe which he did during a spring training weight lifting accident. But he's also expected to return to the rotation Thursday baring any setbacks so they will be just fine. The Astros are another team looking a little sluggish out of the gate starting at 8-9. They have nothing to worry about either, this team started very poorly last year and won the World Series. They still have a +14 run differential. They have just been on the wrong side of some close matchups but I expect them to bounce back. Especially since they have been playing without Jose Altuve and Lance McCullers. The final team that is off to a slow start is the Seattle Mariners sitting at 8-9. They started the season really cold on all fronts, but this past week they have shown that they just needed some extra time to warm up as they are now starting to click on all fronts. Teoscar Hernandez had a horrible start to the year but is showing why they gave up so much to get him this past week hitting in 6 consecutive games including multi hit games in 3 of those. Jared Kelenic is finally showing what he is capable of in the MLB. Hopefully it wasn't just against the Cubs, but in the series in Wrigly he looked like he could be one of the best OF in all of baseball going 5-9 with 3 massive home runs. George Kirby also rebounded nicely on the mound with 2 quality starts after a rough first outing and my CY Young pick of Luis Castillo is looking really nice at the moment (Probably just jinxed it).

There are 2 teams that were expected to be contenders that we should start to get a little worried. Both need to be worried about the same thing too which is pitching and those teams are the Phillies and the Cardinals. The Phillies are in a slightly better spot but man their pitching has been rough. They have given up the 4th most runs in the league at 91 and haven't looked good doing it. Even their star pitchers Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola have looked a little rough. Wheeler has looked progressively better through his first 3 starts but still not the dominant pitcher we have become used to watching. Nola on the other hand looks like a completely different pitcher. This is a guy who received CY Young votes last year and he currently has a 5.91 ERA through his first (4) starts. Ranger Suarez will hopefully be back soon to help out with that. Their offense has looked bleak to begin the season as well but they are dealing with injuries and they will right the ship. The Cardinals are somewhat the same way. Their offense hasn't put up the runs they should and I think that will correct itself. But their Starting pitching I'm very concerned about. Jordan Montgomery and Jack Flaherty have looked solid to start the year, but Miles Mikolas has been Awful boasting a 10.05 ERA and Steven Matz at 6.48 isn't ideal either. They need to consider giving Matthew Liberatore another crack in the big leagues. He was rough when he got called up last year but he is off to an incredible start in the minors. Through 3 starts he has a 1.06 ERA with 24 strikeouts through 17 innings.

The final thing I want to go over is an incident that occurred in the Twins VS Yankees game on April 15. In the 3rd inning of the game Domingo German, who was dominating the Twins, walked off after closing out the inning and an umpire stopped him to check his hand and glove like they always do. They had a lengthy conversation, the umpire was talking to him about something and then they walked away. German came out of the dugout to begin his 4th inning and the same umpire came over to check his hands again and it turned into a big commotion stopping play for roughly 5 minutes. German ended up being able to pitch and Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was not happy with him being allowed to pitch. Baldelli argued with the umpire for a while and ended up being ejected from the ball game for arguing that German was able to pitch even though it was quite clear the umpire was suspicious of some kind of foreign substance on German. We later found out that the umpire felt something sticky on German's throwing hand around his pinky area. German stated it was just rosin, the umpire told him to wash his hands before he came back the mound. That's already the wrong thing. The rules for umpires is if they feel a foreign sticky substance the pitcher is to be tossed from the game. German came back out and when the umpire felt his hand to check, German had not washed his hands. He claimed he did but said it was just extra sticky from the rosin. The umpire decided to let him pitch which is why Baldelli was so heated when he came out to chat.

The entire situation was a bit suspicious to me. If rosin was the substance the umpire should be able to notice. They feel the hands of the pitcher after every single inning. He should know the difference between rosin and a foreign substance. In my honest opinion this situation should be investigated further.

It's been a fantastic beginning to the season, here's to hoping it just keeps getting better!

--Cyrus Beermann