Cubs, Red Sox already in serious trouble
If you’re fixing to raise the flag for your hometown team or put all of the bums on the trading block, take a quick peek at the standings at this juncture one year ago.
The Red Sox were 8-1. The Mets 7-1. Which is to say, we can’t glean much from an eight- or nine-game sample, except when we can. Naturally, it’s more entertaining to freak out over a mere 11day sample, even if two of the involved teams haven’t even opened their home ballparks for business yet.
With that, a few overreactions from the season’s opening leg that might look prescient in October or preposterous by Easter.
Cubs: Behind in deep NL Central
Theo Epstein, the club’s president of baseball operations, was partially correct when he said over the weekend that the buck stops with him, not manager Joe Maddon nor owner Tom Ricketts, regarding the Cubs’ start.
Indeed, the lame-duck Maddon has been hamstrung by a malfunctioning bullpen and a pitching staff that has the worst ERA (7.51 going into Monday) in baseball. It’s hard to imagine this poorly constructed unit functioning on all cylinders all season, barring a total reversal in fortunes for Yu Darvish and Jose Quintana, whose regressions have ranged from subtle to severe.
At the same time, Epstein has earned a mulligan or two from ownership; he probably should have been granted the leeway to dig out from $164 million worth of pitching mistakes last winter in the form of Darvish and Tyler Chatwood. Instead, it’s largely status quo for both lineup and staff, and a team far inferior to the Brewers down the stretch in 2018 is already five games in the hole and late-inning guy Carl Edwards Jr. is at Class AAA Iowa, trying to regain his mojo.
Even the good vibes of a 10-0 triumph over Pittsburgh in their home opener had a grim undertone: Jon Lester, by far their most reliable starter, exited after two innings with hamstring tightness, likely suffered while running the bases.
There’s still too much talent to count the Cubs out, and a lineup motivated by recharged veterans has posted doubledigit run totals in half of its games. Alarmingly, the Cubs lost two of those, by 11-10 and 13-10 counts.
It’s a pattern far from conducive to survival in a deep National League Central.
Red Sox: Probably won’t win East
We won’t yet call it a hangover; manager Alex Cora says he knows what those feel like and this ain’t it.
It’s just that repeating as World Series champions is really, really hard in this era of the endless playoffs, one reason no one’s done it since 2000. And the early returns for a club placing its hopes on a rotation replicating its championship dominance are grim.
Whether it’s Chris Sale’s continued diminished velocity (an average fastball of 91.3 mph), Nathan Eovaldi’s sagging strikeout rate (six in 10 innings), Rick Porcello’s and Eduardo Rodriguez’s 32 hits given up in 151⁄3 innings or the five starters combining to yield 16 home runs in 461⁄3 innings, the first two spins through the rotation were alarming.
Also disconcerting: Boston opted to go frugal on its bullpen, letting Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel go while placing larger bets on Matt Barnes, Ryan Brasier and others. It’s worked out OK, but it’s also easy to foretell harder times if the unit is asked to soak up far too many innings from a sputtering rotation.
Sure, the lineup will still bludgeon the occasional opponent into submission. But take a look around: The Rays are younger, deeper, more flexible and already are pitching to a majors-best 1.88 ERA while striking out nearly 10 per nine innings. The 19 meetings with the Yankees figure to be brutal, high-scoring affairs that might leave a mini-hangover in the days that follow.
We won’t call it a hangover. Just call it a very tall order to repeat, as division winners, let alone World Series champs.
Kimbrel: NL East difference-maker
It is the most delicious of division races, filled with superstars, aces, betrayals and bat flips and four teams tying to win. Then the bullpen door opens, the clown music starts up and a Renoir turns into a finger painting.
If anyone’s to provide a compelling drama all through the summer and into the first traces of autumn, it is the Nationals, Phillies, Mets and Braves. Bryce Harper’s intra-division defection can take a back seat to actual baseball on most nights in a division that features the NL’s last four Cy Young Award winners and the biggest prize on the free agent pitching market, Patrick Corbin.
But all four teams have suffered through embarrassing bullpen pratfalls that have quickly exposed every unit.
Naturally, there’s an antidote just lurking at home, waiting to put someone over the top: Kimbrel. Sure, his offseason asking price might have been too large, but the seven-time All-Star with a career save percentage superior to Mariano Rivera’s seems to gain leverage with every embarrassing late inning.
And while there were rightful concerns about Kimbrel’s 2018 second-half drop-off and subpar playoffs, a merely competent Kimbrel would be a significant boon to all four clubs.
So, too, is the value of keeping him away from the other guys.
Dodgers: Obviously unstoppable
Did anyone else notice how blasé the Dodgers were after first Clayton Kershaw, then Walker Buehler, then Rich Hill succumbed to fairly minor spring training maladies that delayed the start of their season?
Of course they were. The Dodgers are as deep and punishing as any team in baseball, and their 8-2 start proves it.
As for the offense … The Dodgers have homered in all 10 games. Cody Bellinger has matched Willie Mays (1964) as the only players with seven homers and 18 RBI through 10 games. They just outscored the Rockies 29-14 in a threegame romp at Coors Field.
“I still think there’s more in there,” says manager Dave Roberts. Yikes.
We’re not ready to grant the Dodgers a seventh consecutive National League West Division crown. Just call their dominance yet another early trend that looks way too real.