Week 2 observations

• A 3 game winning streak! And it easily could have been 5 with some more timely hitting last Tuesday and a better bullpen performance Thursday. But let’s enjoy what should be the first of many winning streaks this season. 5-10 is still not a good record and nothing near what we would have expected from this team opening the season, but it’s no longer worst in the league; Seattle and their banjo hitting (does anyone know how this saying started?) offense get that distinction (poor King Felix and Prince Pineda). It would be great to point to this streak as that which turned the season around and reminded this rag tag group of insanely rich people that they should be the best team in the league. There are a lot of people to give credit to but we will start with…
• Me. Ok, maybe we should credit Jed Lowrie here, but I have to pat myself on the back for getting one right because typically my predictions are pretty terrible (Brandon Belt, my NL ROY pick is about to be sent back to the minors). To refresh, last Wednesday, I suggested that if the Red Sox made the simple switch of playing Lowrie over Marco Scutaro, they would instantly see an improved and more balanced offense. In the four games since (3 starts, 1 pinch hit appearance), Lowrie has done his best Nomar impression (big nose and all) and has gone 9-15 with 2 HR and 8 RBI while the Sox have won all 3 of his starts. He now has a .516 average through his first 31 at bats and appears to have picked up right where he left off last year. Great job Jed and an even better job me. Now we just need Jed to share a little bit of that magic with….
• Carl Crawford. He appears to be completely lost at this point and even his all world defense is being affected by his slump at the plate. He has fewer hits this season than Lowrie has had in his last 4 games. His strikeout percentage is equal to his on base percentage. Last week I dug deep to figure out what may be wrong with him from a strictly performance level, but this may be an old fashioned mentally driven slump. As a guy who has played in the post season twice, including a World Series, and countless series against the Red Sox and Yankees, I would not think that the market size would be a factor, so more likely it could be the pressures that come with a shiny new huge contract. I’m reminded of Edgar Renteria’s Boston debut in 2005 when he hit .228/.283/.359 for the month of April and was hammered with boos. We need to remember that Crawford is a legit great player. While he won’t put up eye popping numbers with the bat, especially in the power department, his combination of good hitting, great base running and incredible fielding forms a phenomenal all around player. If we give him time, Crawford is sure to rebound just like…
• Daisuke Matsuzakkka. Can we even call his Patriot’s Day performance a rebound? Don’t you have to have done something good in the past, fallen off and then return to that goodness in order to RE-bound? I think he just bounded. Whatever it is, yesterday was a great performance from the Big Mistake in Little Japan. 89 pitches through 7 innings is Maddux-esque. While he didn’t exactly look dominant (he seemed to be missing Tek’s targets a lot), he was mixing his pitches really well, throwing a lot of them in the zone and inducing weak contact. For one day at least, Dice-K saved his job. If I were him, I would send a huge bouquet of flowers to…
• The Toronto Blue Jays. Color me unimpressed. This is a team that was supposed to contend for a Wild Card this year. They were supposed to be a team with a strong offense and a good young pitching staff that could withstand the its second ace in two seasons being traded. I see a very mediocre staff without an ace to fill in for Shaun Marcum. I see an offense that scored the 6^th most runs in the AL last year despite having the 12^th best OBP, which means that the baseball gods will not allow so many runs to score for this team this year without an improvement in not making outs. I see a team who got 2 hugely flukey seasons last year (John Buck and Jose Bautista) and is not likely to see a repeat from the hold over (Bautista) and a matching from the catching replacements (rookie J.P. Arencibia and Molina Model 6378). I see a team that was extremely lucky to get out from under the vicious Vernon Wells contract, but that failed to replace his still solid production. I see a team that is still waiting on two former prospects (Adam Lind and Travis Snider) to break out and form the offensive core for this team. With a young GM who made some great long term moves this off season, I think a lot of people were expecting this team to be an out of nowhere contender. It seems like those people were wrong and the actual out of nowhere contender is actually…
• The Cleveland Indians. Cleveland is 12-4. They have the second best run differential in baseball (to Texas). They are getting what could be a sustainable rebound (because he actually used to play great) season from Travis Hafner, who finally appears to be healthy for the first time in years. They are getting strong production at the top of the order from youngsters Asdrubal Cabrera and Michael Brantley, who also play strong defense. They have hand shake master Orlando Cabrera sprinkling his left over fairy dust from the 2004 Red Sox season all over his teammates. Grady Sizemore made his triumphant return this weekend, playing in his first game since last May, and stroked a Home Run in his second at bat simultaneously sending a tremor down the pants of Cleveland’s female fan base. Hell, even Drew Carey debuted a new improv show on the Game Show Network last week. Cleveland rocks indeed and at least they're not Detroit! Best of all, their two best hitters, Carlos Santana and Shin Soo Choo (or “that Asian guy” as my buddy called him), are off to terrible starts. If the pitching can remain even average, this success could be for real in a weakened AL Central, especially if bad things keep happening to…
• The Minnesota Twins. Joe Mauer (one of the best players in baseball despite what Odo says) was just placed on the DL with a mysterious ailment that is causing both of his legs to be constantly fatigued. Joe Nathan has been disastrous in his return from Tommy John surgery. Francisco Liriano is all kinds of screwed up in the early going as he supposedly tries to pitch to contact more (because why would you want your pitcher to strike out 9.4 per 9 while only walking 2.7 per 9?). My dad’s buddy Tsuyoshi Nishioka is out with a broken leg leaving an already weak middle infield weaker. Jim Thome has finally showered off all that Fountain of Youth juice that he was covered in last year. Delmon Young is remembering that he is now and always will be a bust. The Twins certainly seemed like contenders at the beginning of this season with the Tigers and White Sox, but with their budget maxed out they needed the current collection of talent to hold up and produce over the full season and it appears like that won’t happen. This season was extra important for this team because as soon as next year they are going to start having to worry about…
• The Kansas City Royals. Along with Cleveland, the Royals are surprising everyone in the AL Central; at 10-6 they sit in second behind the upstart Indians in the division. This is a team I am a lot more dubious about than Cleveland though. Currently they are riding the hot starts of a couple former golden boys in addition to the one really good player in their everyday lineup. Alex Gordon and Jeff Francouer have posted an .895 and .883 OPS, respectively to this point.  Both are hitting with power and they each have even taken a couple walks! Unfortunately, Gordon’s strikeouts are still an issue and Francouer’s specialty is starting out hot with a new team leading to renewed promise only to have that promise crushed like a pack of Tic Tacs in C.C. Sabathia’s back pocket (seriously, look at Francouer’s starts with his new teams, it’s like he has some innate ability to do this). Billy Butler is playing great and channeling Edgar Martinez and I expect him to at least maintain some of his hot start. Where this team is truly torpedoed is in their rotation, which is why they will ultimately fail this year. As it was last year, this year their best pitcher is Bruce Chen. Ouch. Maybe the Red Sox can steal one of the Royals’ prized pitching prospects with the promise of improving their rotation by trading them…
• John Lackey. Lackey hasn’t pitched since my last observations, which I’m sure is in no way related to why I have good things to say about the Sox this week. Francona decided to skip his start this week with the rainout and off day and kept the other three starters minus Dice K on their regular turns. I loved this move. I don’t know what the hell is going on with Lackey, but giving him this extra time to get some work in with the new pitching coach has to be a good thing. In addition, in the time since we skipped his start, we haven’t had a bad start, which I think is really helping the psyche of this team. I don’t think we will ever see a return to the quasi-ace that Lackey was last decade, but if we could just get him to be what he was last year we should be all set. Last year he was an average starter who could usually keep the team in games, especially down the stretch. While I was never bullish on this bull dog of a man, I at least thought he could be an average starter with a good defense behind him. Fortunately for Lackey and all the Nation, our defense and offense will be anchored for the next 8 years by none other than…
• Adrian Gonzalez. Finally agreeing to his monster extension (wink, wink), Gonzalez assumes his role as the make up call to the Mark Teixeira situation two years ago. While his bat hasn’t been the Green Monster’s worst enemy like we expected yet, watching him play is just an absolute joy. He has a beautiful, compact swing that really will bruise the monster with ease. His defense has been nothing short of incredible so far. One of the best parts about rooting for a large market team is the ability to get superstar players in their primes. While it may not be entirely fair to the San Diego-ites, San Diego-uns, San Diegones, I feel very lucky to be able to watch Gonzo for the next 8 years. He is a super duper star and having him in the middle of our lineup places us in immediate contention every year. Even this year.
• Small ball: Last week before the Rays series I wrote “Sam Fuld (who?)”. I knew who he was before I said that, but didn’t think much of him. So I looked into his minor league career and even though he was always old for his league, he posted a .372 career on base percentage. He’s not going to be a .400 hitter the rest of the year, but clearly this man knows how to get on base. Another win for Andrew Friedman and the Rays…Troy Tulowitzki may have super powers. 7 HR from the shortstop position in 16 games? He’s the MVP of the NL, MLB, the USA and all the world right now…Dan Haren and Jered Weaver are single handedly keeping the Angels alive. I’m trying my best to think of a Spahn and Sain rhyme for them but coming up empty. Weaver and Haren then our rotation is barren? I’m open to suggestions…The Phillies have no such issues. While Hamels and Lee have had only average results so far, each is striking out over a guy per inning and the Roys have been lights out. They’ll need all 4 to be absolutely dominant all season because that bullpen and offense are suspect. But damn it must suck to have to face 3 of those guys in a series…Brad Emaus is about to be designated for assignment. For those who don’t know who he is, he was a Rule 5 pick of the Mets this year and opened the season as their starting second baseman. He is also a guy I gave an Honorable Mention to for Rookie of the Year in my NL Preview. Another reason why I felt the need to congratulate myself for Jed Lowrie…Josh Beckkkkkkkkkett with another great start. This turn around could be real…Finally, in honor of Dice-K’s fun start, a quote from Willie Stargell that X Dad used to love to say: “When they start the game, they don’t yell, ‘Work Ball!’ They say, ‘Play Ball!’” Amen.