King Felix vs. Yu Darvish tonight. Darvish made his MLB debut against the M’s and got knocked around in the first inning, only to end up winning when the Texas offense knocked back harder. I don’t expect that to happen again.
The Cardinals, Marlins, and Mets are all 22-19.
The Cardinals have a run differential of +57, best in the league, second best in baseball. That “should” translate to a current record of 28-13.
The Marlins have a run differential of +1, seventh in a 16-team league, fifteenth in baseball. That “should” translate to 21-20, barely.
The Mets have a run differential of -31, thirteenth in the league, 26th overall. That “should” translate to 18-23.
It’s a weird world.
This early in the season
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Pythagorean projections can be way off, and
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Frankly, you can’t really trust run differential very much, either. A few blowouts and a team looks way different from what it really is.
According to run differential the best teams in the AL are:
- Texas, +84
- Toronto, +35
- Boston, +17
- Baltimore and Tampa Bay, +14
I think there’s* some *truth lurking in this; Texas really is the best team in the league, and at season’s end I can totally see Boston having a better record than Baltimore. But I’m going to be absolutely shocked if Toronto is a better team than Tampa Bay. I get a lot of chances to watch both teams and the Blue Jays just aren’t as good; they are a good team, but a lot of their run differential is due to an amazingly high batting average with men in scoring position. They’re hitting .241 as a team but over .300 with guys in scoring position. That just isn’t sustainable. They aren’t really a team of legendary clutch hitters, it’s just luck.
Lance Berkman may have a torn ACL: Fantasy Home: News, Videos, Stats, Highlights, Results & More - Rotoworld - NBC Sports
Yeah, the injury bug and a bunch of 1-run losses have blown away the Cardinals lead in the Central. That’s the cost of a veteran-laden lineup, I suppose. The initial test on Berkman showed no ACL tear, but he’s getting a second opinion later this week. Either way he’ll be out for a good long time.
Now we find out if Matt Adams is the real deal and if the bullpen (and rotation to some extent) can pull it together to run off a nice home-stand after a disastrous west-coast trip. And it would help if Matheny would get up to speed on in-game management quickly - he’s made a few questionable calls that have hurt the team in tight games.
On run differential, the Houston Astros might actually be the unluckiest team in the league so far: +3 runs but 5 games under .500. That said, they’re definitely playing above their talent level - I don’t think Jed Lowrie is going to put up an .800 OPS over a full season (though I wouldn’t be surprised if Jose Altuve does), and I also can’t see Wandy Rodriguez or Brett Myers putting up ERA numbers around 2. Some of the position players have room for improvement, but the rest of the pitchers are more or less where you’d expect them to be. It’s a bit unnerving seeing the team play better-than-expected like this - I’m hoping that this doesn’t convince them that they’re only a piece or two away - I want Rodriguez, Myers, and if possible Carlos Lee (though fat chance of that) traded for whatever they can bring.
There is a lot of fun stuff in the AL east. All 5 teams have positive run differentials with the Yankees being the worst. Of course if you add all five up you still basically get Texas’s total.
Speaking of Texas, the rangers will put Neifi Felix on the dl shortly. This is their first roster move of the year. Before that they have only used the 25 men from opening day. That is amazing, a record, and goes along way to explaining why Texas has been the best team in baseball.
But, then, the five AL East teams have to play each other a lot - about 40% of their games are against each other. Since in intradivisional games they must, of course, have a run differential of 0, comparing them as a group is a bit deceiving. As a group the AL East is playing about .600 ball against teams that aren’t in the AL East.
Cody Ross’ broken foot makes him the *sixth *Boston outfielder on the DL, and Sweeney is sitting out with a concussion, too. There’s serious talk about leaving Adrian Gonzalez in RF, where he was in the Philly series. This is already beyond silly.
The contrast between this and the post two before this one that noted that Texas didn’t have to make a single roster move until today is rather striking.
Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes the baseball gods hate you.
It must have taken quite an effort to get both his names wrong. 
Sometimes you make your own luck, too - part of Boston’s injury problem last year was plainly induced by poor conditioning. Muscle pulls, sore knees from carrying extra weight, ligament strain, etc. The Rangers have obviously kept on top of that.
FWIW, in 2007 Boston didn’t have a single day lost to the DL by any position player. They won the Series. Those facts are related.
That’s undoubtedly true, and we’ve seen cases of teams where the injury problems seems to go on for years. Trainers, after all, differ in approach and skill just like managers or coaches, and there’s no reason to believe some aren’t more or less effective than others. Managers are good at some things and bad at others, and it’s reasonable to assume some are not good at encouraging guys to hit the gym. And of course some guys just work hard and some don’t.
But it’s hard to explain six outfielders on one team in seven weeks. They can’t all be out of shape. Ryan Sweeney didn’t get concussed by being fat.
By the way, wasn’t Manny on the DL in 2007?
Between injuries and trying to give a couple of guys a night off, tonight’s Dodger starting lineup featured just one Opening Day position player (Andre Ethier, who hit a home run). Tonight’s other offensive production came from back-up catcher Matt Treanor (two-run home run), Justin Sellers (one of SIX players on the big league roster who is the son of a former MLB player) and James Loney (two-run shot as a pinch hitter). Chris Capuano went six innings and gave up just one run to the Diamondbacks, lowering his ERA to 2.25.
I’m still not convinced this season is for real, but it sure is fun to watch. Still, I’ll be a lot happier when we get Kemp, Hairston, Rivera and Mark Ellis back.
Mike Leake and Zack Cozart hit back-to-back home runs for the Reds today.
The same fan caught both balls!!!
If they play .500 ball the rest of the way, they are a 90 win team. Even with the patchwork team they have now, they should be able to manage .500 from now on, especially with Kemp coming back. 90 wins should win the division. I think (cringe) it’s time to think this is real. (knock wood)
It’s super fun to watch.
I don’t get the “omigod how can the Dodgers be this good” vibe. They’ve been a decent team for years and made the NLCS two years in a row in 2008-2009. They haven’t really had a BAD year since 2005, and haven’t really beed a bad team in a quarter of a century. There’s lots of talent there. It’s a division with no other superpowers. Why can’t they win 90-100 games?
It’s hold-over from McCourt. <Spit!>
We’ve just gotten used to the Evil vibe that permeated everything while that troll was in charge. My daydream is for the Dodgers to win it all this year, just so we can collectively, as a team and fan base, rub it in his ugly face.
That’s if we can just get past the Phils in the play-offs. <sigh>
Part of it is McCourt, part of it is…well have you looked at the lineup? Ethier was a question mark coming into the season. He was either going to get back on track or was going to continue to be the middling OF of 2011. Loney is such a disappointment (as is Billingsly, if we are talking pitching. Also, did anyone really expect Capuano and Harang to be the above average pitchers that they have been?). And then LF, and 3B don’t have actual players assigned to them. AJ Ellis has been fantastic, but that was totally unexpected, and Mark Ellis was also fantastic and that was also unexpected. Most of the team is over 35 and injury prone even if they play well (note that almost every starter has hit the DL this year, and it’s May.) The team lacks anything that resembles power outside of Kemp and Ethier, but unlike the last two years they have gotten a couple of OBP machines into the lineup, but again, that was unexpected.
There was a whole lot of worst case scenario-ing going on. And worst case scenario, if every player played down to their floor, this is a very bad team. It’s the McCourt of it all that was causing the pessimism that made it seem like they would all play to their floor.
That’s pretty incredible. What are the odds?