Easter Bantering: Early Season Thoughts

Happy Easter. There is some new chocolate around the house, but my wife wouldn’t let me do a scavenger hunt for the kids (since they aren’t kids anymore). I used to leave a series of clues for them. I thought I’d put one clue in the mailbox just saying, ‘It is by the front door in the bag,’ but I didn’t.

Nine games into the season, I thought I’d ask for your early thoughts.

I guess I’m slightly disappointed in the start, but then they have been on the road so far. Generally, if you can keep at .500 on the road life is pretty good.

Offensively, they haven’t been as good as I hoped (but it is just nine road games).

• 10th in the league in runs scored.
• Tied for 8th in home runs.
• 2nd in BA at .286.
• 3rd in OBA at .347.
• 6th in slugging at .418.

The sum of the parts doesn’t seem to be reflected in the run total. It might be a sample size thing. They haven’t been great with RISP, .221/.292/.299. It is likely a sample size thing, but who knows?

They are in the middle of the league in hard-hit percentage but at the top in line drive rate.

This is a nice start:

Added to those three, Daulton Varsho has had a better start than I expected.

On the flip side, Kirk and all the various second basemen are having a slow start. Well, Biggio is doing good, .389 OBP and .429 SA.

We have heard a lot about how they will be more aggressive on the basepaths. I’m always of the opinion that the players who are good baserunners should be aggressive and the others shouldn’t.

I don’t know if it means anything yet, but FanGraphs has them 0.7 Runs above average on the basepaths, 9th best in baseball. They haven’t stolen many bases (4) and have been caught 3 times.

Kiermaier has been a ton of fun to watch on the bases.

On the pitching side, there have been good and very bad days. Overall we are 10th in runs allowed per game. Again I expected better. They’ve had 6 unearned runs, tied for the worst in the league.

Kevin Gausman has been very good in his two starts.

Yusei Kikuchi had one good start, and we’ll see today if he can continue that way.

Alek Manoah had a poor start and then a very good one.

Chris Bassitt had a horrible start, then a pretty good one.

And José Berríos was bad twice. Hopefully, he’ll work things our as the season goes on.

The bullpen has been pretty good, holding batters to a .230/.310/.398 line. We are near the top of the league in relievers used, but they have done pretty well for the most part.

I’m enjoying the outfield defense, but the team is near the league's top in errors. Bo’s had three errors already, which is one of those things we will have to live with. They have had some costly errors.

Varsho’s arm from the outfield seems better than advertised, but it is early.

Today’s line. Danny’s in. It would be nice to see if he can have a real number at the start of his average after today.