It’s too early to tell anything lasting from, essentially,
four days of baseball. But it’s not too early for first impressions: It is
literally the perfect time for first impressions.
These all might look silly in September, or, frankly, in a
week. But for right now: Here’s what jumped out first.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
CENTRAL
PIRATES: Trevor Williams looks like he’s no
fluke. Williams was at times last year the top starter on a team that already
had Jameson Taillon and Chris Archer, and he was terrific in his first
start against a powerful Cincinnati offense in that bandbox
of a ballpark. Eventually we’ll all stop underrating him.
BREWERS: Christian Yelich is no one-year wonder:
He’s a superstar. Yelich appears close to getting the “let’s just not ever let
him beat us” treatment, which may mean the 2019 Brewers season may end up
resting on the shoulders of Ryan Braun. Though, as the Cardinals found in the series
finale Sunday, sometimes you just can’t avoid him.
CARDINALS: That supposedly deep rotation has
some wobbles. The Cardinals are relying on young pitching in their rotation
this year, but their first three starters, Miles Mikolas, Jack Flaherty and
Dakota Hudson, all failed to make it to the sixth inning and all gave up at
least four runs. And if Andrew Miller and Jordan Hicks are going to pitch like they did
Sunday, the rotation won’t even matter.
CUBS: Yu Darvish is already in the red-alert
zone. The leash was already short on Darvish after last year’s debacle. But
now he’s walking
seven guys in less than three innings? The Cubs will give him
more starts, if just because they have no choice. But this situation might come
to a head earlier than anyone could have imagined.
REDS: Joey Votto hasn’t walked yet, which means
nothing means anything anymore.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
EAST
BRAVES: The Braves might want to reconsider
their bullpen and maybe even their rotation. The Braves resisted bringing in a
lot of pitching reinforcements in the offseason, and they sure
looked short against Philadelphia this weekend. This was
not the well-oiled machine you might expect from a defending division champion;
the energy in this division is not with this team right now.
MARLINS: It’s a little less wacky at Marlins
Park now. The stadium has been one of baseball’s curiosities since it opened,
but under Derek Jeter’s leadership, it now looks like every other stadium.
Whether you think that’s a good or bad thing is a matter of personal taste.
METS: Pete Alonso sure looks like he belongs.
The No. 50
prospect in baseball, per MLB Pipeline, began the
year in the Majors and is hitting over .500 while leading
the Majors in doubles. If he’s a Rookie of the Year candidate, the Mets, and
the NL East, look a lot different.
NATIONALS: The kids still look all right. Juan
Soto and Rookie of the Year-favorite Victor Robles (who is two years older than
Soto) look for the entire world like they’re established veterans at this
point. The Nationals
have players to build around that are the envy of baseball.
Now, about that bullpen …
PHILLIES: Bryce Harper still brings crowds to
their feet like no one else. Harper had been struggling before finally
launching (with Nick Williams’ bat) his first Phillies homer Saturday,
and Citizen Bank
Park erupted. Harper homers are as aesthetically pleasing as
anyone’s in the game. For the next 13 years, the Phillies get to call them
theirs
NATIONAL LEAGUE
WEST
DIAMONDBACKS: It is fantastic seeing Adam Jones back.
The beloved veteran met a frosty market in the offseason, but, as if fans
weren’t going to love him anyway, he hit two homers in his first series as a
National League player.
DODGERS: When Cody Bellinger is on one of his
heaters, there aren’t many hitters like him in baseball. Remember that run he
went on his rookie year? He had another one this weekend,
smashing four homers and getting 10 hits in four games. That swing is forever
pure.
GIANTS: The Giants, sad to say, look old.
They scored five runs in four games, and Pablo Sandoval currently leads them in
extra-base hits. The questions concerning this team’s next steps continue to
multiply.
PADRES: The Padres have some real life to them
all of a sudden. What was most impressive about the Padres this weekend was how
poised and comfortable they looked: This team is
one on the up, and they played like they knew it.
ROCKIES: The Rockies made a serious mistake
by extending
Nolan Arenado, who went 4-for-18 with no walks over the weekend.
Ha, just kidding. It is just the Opening Weekend, after all.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
EAST
BLUE JAYS: Sure, they were playing the Tigers,
but still: Four starting pitching performances without giving up a single run
is no joke. Matt Shoemaker, Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez and Trent Thornton
pitched a total of 24 scoreless
innings in Toronto over the long weekend. Expectations have
been low for the rotation this year, but you tend to notice when the rotation
doesn’t give up a run in a four-game series.
ORIOLES: The Orioles may have some solid bullpen
pieces to trade come July. The Orioles are in an experimental season that’s
just laying the groundwork for years in the future, but come the Trade
Deadline, they’ve got some arms teams might be able to use, or maybe they could
even keep them around. Paul Fry, Jimmy Yacabonis, David Hess, Miguel Castro,
Mychal Givens, they all looked pretty solid against the mighty Yankees over the
weekend, and they’re all still in their 20s. Also, they just won a series
at Yankee Stadium, in case you know anyone who saw that coming.
RAYS: The success of the opener strategy will
largely be decided by the more traditional starters. Defending Cy Young Award
winner Blake Snell actually had the least success of the Rays’ Big Three
against the powerful Astros, but Charlie Morton and especially
Tyler Glasnow were terrific. Those three will carry the
opener as far as the team can go.
RED SOX: It’s tough to talk about anything with
the Red Sox without discussing how Chris Sale looked in his first
game, with his velocity way down and his ERA way, way up. Forget
worries about Sale’s extension: If the Red Sox are going to come close to what
they did last year, they need him to be himself now.
YANKEES: The age of the cute, plucky, lovable
young Yankees is over. When Aaron Judge was leading the upstart Yankees kids
into the AL Championship Series two years ago, even the most veteran Yankee
haters couldn’t deny the team’s charms. But now, as the Yankees come to the end
of a decade in which they haven’t reached the World Series once (the first time
in 100 years that has happened), everyone is on notice. The day after the
Yankees’ first loss of the year, Judge was already
calling his team out. And then they went out and lost again. The
grace period is over.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
CENTRAL
INDIANS: The Indians were always in danger of
being too top-heavy, but with Francisco Lindor, Jason Kipnis and Danny Salazar
all out, they look dangerously thin. You look at this lineup, and only Jose
Ramirez and maybe Carlos
Santana scare you at all. They need those guys back, and
soon.
ROYALS: Brad Keller’s magic trick still works.
Keller’s ability to get hitters out and keep runs from scoring despite not
striking anybody out would seem to belie gravity, but so far so good. He had
five strikeouts in seven innings (a low K-rate in this era) and gave up two
hits and no runs in his first
start.
TIGERS: Despite an encouraging spring, Miguel
Cabrera has had a nightmare start to the season. He had two hits (both singles)
in three games and then had to leave Saturday’s game after getting hit on a
hand with a pitch (X-rays were
negative). Then he went 0-for-6 on Sunday.
TWINS: Here comes Jose Berrios. The 25-year-old
Twins phenom was earmarked as a potential breakout candidate this year, and he
did nothing to slow the tongue-wagging in his first
start, throwing seven shutout innings (two hits, one walk, 10
strikeouts). With the Indians looking wobbly, the Twins have an upstart look to
them.
WHITE SOX: Yoan Moncada may have figured
something out. Moncada led the Majors in strikeouts last year,
but he began this season on a tear, bashing a homer and, most notably, not striking
out until Sunday. This guy was the top prospect in baseball not long ago. We
may be finally starting to see why.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
WEST
ANGELS: Mike Trout: Still good! No one thought
Trout would lose any edge after signing his massive contract extension, and he,
of course, hit the ground at full speed the first weekend. In his prime age-27
season, there’s a non-zero possibility he’s about to have his career season,
as frightening as that sounds.
ASTROS: Justin Verlander still hasn’t lost any
velocity. While his contemporaries are losing their fastballs and figuring out
what to do next, Verlander is still out their smoking guys, striking out nine
in seven innings in his first
start. He may be doing this when he’s 50. (He’s said he
wants to pitch until he’s 45, so perhaps that’s not too far
off.)
ATHLETICS: The old relievers are starting to
look like old relievers. The A’s, in the face of baseball trends, are counting
on relievers in their thirties to be the linchpins of their bullpen, but it’s
not working out so far. Fernando Rodney, in particular, looks like there isn’t
much left. With Ichiro Suzuki’s retirement, he’s now the oldest player in
baseball.
MARINERS: All offseason, the Royals got press as
the crazy base-stealing team, but it’s the Mariners who are tearing up the
basepaths. With Dee Gordon, Domingo Santana and Mallex Smith, they’re looking
like the old 1980s Mariners. They already have seven stolen bases (in eight
attempts), and no one else has more than five. And they just scored 34 runs in
a four-game
series against the defending World Series champs.
RANGERS: Globe Life Park is going to go out the
way it came in: with runs being scored like crazy. There were 51 in the series
between the Rangers and the Cubs; they may still be scoring
right now. The baseball might not always be beautiful in Arlington this year,
but they’re going to be lighting up some scoreboards.
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