Let's kick off this week by looking at some of the conclusions we've already jumped to after six days of baseball...
The St. Louis Cardinals are having a rebuilding season.
The first three games in Pittsburgh did not provoke a great reaction from the Best Fans in Baseball. The Cardinals lost three straight games to the Pirates, striking out thirty-seven times during the series. That was a lot of free pizza for the Pittsburgh fans in attendance, assuming they have that 11 strikeouts promotion that Reds fans love. The Cardinals looked bad in the field, the bats were swinging at nothing, and the starting pitching wasn't good. Cardinals fans are already freaking out, but allow me to cross sports lines and quote Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers:
R-E-L-A-X
Relax. Your team will be fine. It was one series. If they had started losing to the Braves I would have been a little curious about what's going on in St. Louis, but they passed that "test" with flying colors. They're 3-3 and going home. It's all right.
Trevor Story is the future of the Colorado Rockies.
The twenty-three year old is starting at shortstop for the Rockies right now because of the absence of Jose Reyes, the enigmatic shortstop they acquired from Toronto in the trade that sent Troy Tulowitzki north of the border and to a relevant baseball team. Story wasn't even considered among the Rockies' top ten prospects, but got the call up because they needed a shortstop. He's rewarded the Rockies so far, hitting four home runs in his first three games & becoming the first player since 1900 to homer in his first three games. He didn't slow down over the weekend, hitting two home runs on Friday night and another on Sunday. Seven home runs in his first six games, breaking the record for home runs through a team's first six games of a season shared by Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt & Larry Walker. That's pretty heady stuff, and people are already wondering if Story should remain the Rockies shortstop even when Reyes comes back from his domestic violence-induced vacation.
He probably should. Reyes is a flaky dude, ten years older than Story & trending in the wrong direction. The problem is that they're not going to get anything of fair value for him, and cutting him would be silly. Reyes will be shortstop whenever he returns, and Story will find another position to play because third base is the only position in the Rockies lineup that's set in stone. We don't know if Story's going to end up being a Hall of Famer because he had a great opening week of his career, but he's proven worthy of continuing his...story.
Kyle Schwarber being out for the season puts a dent in the Cubs' postseason chances.
Schwarber's left field experiment was "interesting" at the end of last season, and it blew up in Chicago's faces during Thursday's game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. A collision between Schwarber & center fielder Dexter Fowler tore the ACL & LCL in his left knee and has him out of action for the rest of the 2016 season. Not only is this horrible news for those of us that used a keeper slot on him in fantasy baseball, it's pretty bad news for the Cubs as well. Schwarber's power hitting was a key factor in their ascension upwards last season and is expected to be a big part of the team going forward.
However, the Cubs are so stacked in talent that it probably won't matter too much. Jorge Soler, another dangerous young power hitter, stands to gain the most playing time. Ben Zobrist will probably see more time in the outfield, which will give young power hitter Javier Baez more playing time when he returns from injury. The Cubs have a wealth of young power hitting talent, so losing one doesn't hurt them too much.
The main problem, in the eyes of superstitious Cubs fans that have seen every type of disappointment befall their baseball team since 1908, is that this could be the first bad omen of things to come for a Cubs team that has high expectations. It's tough to tell them not to over-react in that vein because, well, its the Cubs. First its Schwarber. Next it could be Rizzo. Next it could be Arrietta. That's how things tend to go in Chicago. Can this batch of Cubs change the culture?
The Arizona Diamondbacks wasted a ton of money on Zack Greinke.
I never noticed how much Greinke looked like Colin Cowherd until right this second.
Usually it's a good thing to have Greinke starting two games in a week, but not last week. Arguably the most high-profile free agent last off-season, Greinke went 0-2 with a 9.90 ERA his first week in Arizona. Troubling numbers, but keep in mind that his two games were against the Rockies & the Cubs, two teams that have no problems scoring runs. He's not going to repeat what he did last season (most pitchers wouldn't, his 2015 was absolutely ridiculous), but he's still going to be the best pitcher on the D-Backs' roster. The fact of the matter is that anybody moving from the Dodgers to the D-Backs is going to have a downward trend in production due to the man behind the plate. Welington Castilo's pitch-framing skills are not on par with Yasmani Grandal of the Dodgers, and that gives Greinke less room to work with as far as strike calls go.
Let's be honest though, 206.5 million is a waste of money for any pitcher already at the age of thirty-two. Time is not on your side.
The Baltimore Orioles will go undefeated.
They won't. But it's always nice to be the last team in MLB to suffer defeat, and the Orioles stand alone at 5-0. A round of applause to them.
Speaking of over-reactions, we're having plenty of them in Cincinnati right now, and they're of the good kind...
Reds Update
The Philadelphia Phillies are widely expected to be the worst team in baseball this season. They're a young team with a couple of players that show a world of potential, a pretty good starting pitcher, and not a heck of a lot much else. So it's a good sign for the 2016 Cincinnati Reds that they were able to sweep the Phillies out of town, in three games that were fairly entertaining. Opening Day featured a comeback effort in the 8th inning, Opening Night was a walkoff hit, and Game 3 was a dominating eight-run 4th inning. The starting pitching was fine after some early hiccups, the bullpen was good except for Thursday when they had a big lead anyway, and Jay Bruce's hot bat along with key contributions from folks acquired in trades got the Reds enough runs to get off to a good start & three games ahead of the Cardinals in the NL Central.
Then the Pirates came into town. Friday night seemed like a return to Earth, as the Reds blew a 5-2 lead in the 8th when Ross Ohlendorf loaded the bases & JJ Hoover gave up a grand slam to Starling Marte. You could feel the momentum shifting, but the Reds got it back together on Saturday & Sunday, holding the Pirates to one run in each game behind solid pitching. With the exception of Ohlendorf & Hoover on Friday night, and a not-great effort on Thursday that was good enough thanks to 10 runs from the offense, the Reds' pitching staff did good work this week.
The offense was powered mostly by Jay Bruce, who's in one of his good stretches right now. When he's good he's really good, and when he's bad he's really bad. Hopefully bad Bruce stays away a little while longer, good Bruce was on fire this week and played a role in each of the Reds' victories. Eugenio Suarez has been the other star of the offense, leading the Reds with four homeruns during the week & delivering in key situations. Most of the other bats have fallen silent...with the exception of a big hit on Opening Day Joey Votto's been quiet, while Billy Hamilton & Devin Mesoraco have done little else but get outs. The pitching carried the Reds through the week, and considering that was thought to be their main weakness heading into this season, that has to be a good sign.
A common theme in conversations I've had with fellow Reds fans the last few days is the memory of what happened in the first week of last season. The 2015 Reds won their first four games and finished their first homestand 4-2. Then they went to Chicago & St. Louis the next week & won one game the whole week in a sign of things to come. Guess where the Reds are going this week? That's right, Chicago & St. Louis. This road trip will be a much better indicator of where the Reds are in the grand scheme of things than the past week was. Hats off to the boys for a good start, but now business picks up on the road against two historical thorns in the Reds' side.
One thing that wasn't great for the Reds in Week 1: Attendance. After a record regular season crowd on Opening Day, the attendance numbers went straight into the crapper. Barely over 20,000 on Opening Night, a putrid 10,000 and change for a Thursday day game, a sorry 17,000 on Friday night, and mid-20K attendance for the weekend games. This isn't too surprising for a number of factors.
-Turnover on the roster: The Reds traded away Todd Frazier & Aroldis Chapman during the off-season, two favorites of the Reds fanbase. They tried to trade Brandon Phillips & Jay Bruce but couldn't get deals done. Fans don't like it when their favorite players get traded for people they don't know yet, even if their current favorites aren't capable of winning in the current environment. Cincinnati especially is a city that fears change. The Reds front office has to know this and has to be ready to take a beating at the box office in the short-term with the plan being that eventually the new kids will become fan favorites. Panicking and keeping people around to appease the fanbase at the expense of the team's future would be the wrong way to go. As much as I liked Frazier, Chapman, Johnny Cueto & other guys that have left the Reds in the past year, I realize that this is how it has to be. Hopefully my patience will be rewarded.
-School still being in session: This one we can't do a lot about. The kids need to be in school.
-The cold. the rain (and even a little snow): This comes up a lot this time of the year and is something we can talk about right now. Last week featured quite a bit of cancellations across baseball.
Last Week's Postponements:
Monday: Houston at New York, Boston at Cleveland
Thursday: Boston at Cleveland
Saturday: Miami at Washington, Tampa Bay at Baltimore
Sunday: Cleveland at Chicago, New York at Detroit
One thing I've never understood about baseball scheduling is the refusal of Major League Baseball to try & work around the weather. April is theoretically in Spring, but we all know that Winter likes to stay around longer than we'd like it to. With the exception of Cincinnati due to Baseball Tradition, I see no reason why MLB can't limit the number of games in the Northeast or the Midwest for at least the first week of the season. Here's the list of cities that I would have baseball hold Opening Week in every season:
Anaheim
Arizona
Arlington
Atlanta
Cincinnati (tradition)
Houston
Los Angeles
Miami
Milwaukee (dome)
Oakland
San Francisco
Seattle (dome)
Tampa
Toronto (dome)
That leaves us with one random Midwest or Northeast city. I'd go with St. Louis because they're the furthest south. Eight National League teams & seven American League teams would host, division games would largely take place later on in the season, and we'd have less games getting postponed due to snow & less games with meager attendance due to cold weather. These are all good things in my book, and long overdue.
Think about it... this season New York hosts Houston in April when it's 30 degrees in New York and Houston hosts New York in late July when it's 95 degrees in Houston. What sense does that make? Shouldn't common sense dictate that Houston host New York in the first week of the season & New York host Houston in July? It makes sense to me anyway.
Three Series To Watch This Week
1. Kansas City at Houston (Monday-Thursday): It's a four-game set featuring the two-time defending American League Champions against one of the top contenders this season. What's not to love? The Astros got off to a mediocre start in Week 1 in New York & Milwaukee, continuing their trend from last season when they were the worst road team in the AL West. They were tied for the best home record though, so one can expect them to get back on the right track. KC was the best road team in the American League last year. In an odd scheduling quirk, neither KC's ace (Edinson Volquez) nor Houston's ace (Dallas Keuchel) will appear in this series. One thinks they might see each other in October.
2. San Francisco at Los Angeles (Friday-Sunday): They've already faced off once and they're going at it again because they're the West Coast version of the Yanks & the Sawx. Clayton Kershaw & Madison Bumgarner are currently scheduled to pitch the Friday night game on MLB Network if you're like me and not working on Saturday & don't have much of a social life. You can throw all the record books out the window, but know that these two teams will likely decide the NL West championship & playoff spot.
3. Cincinnati at Chicago Cubs (Monday, Wednesday-Thursday): It's the opening series for Wrigley Field in 2016, and maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem right that all three games will be at night. When I was a kid I loved getting home from school & turning on WGN to see baseball. Even if I was a Reds fan it was fun to watch day baseball and listen to the legendary Harry Caray. So that's a bit of a downer, but this will still be a series to keep an eye on because it'll give us a true indicator of where the Reds are. Did they get lucky for a week or is there more to it? Playing the prohibitive National League favorite in their place will tell the tale.
Welp, that's all we have time for this week! Thanks for reading, and we'll be back next week with the latest baseball news & views!
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