Early-season divisional play continues, and it wasn’t as fun a week as it could have been for Baltimore. The bad news is the Orioles are in last place in the East going into Friday’s action. The good news is:
Boston |
9 |
7 |
.563 |
– |
NY Yankees |
9 |
7 |
.563 |
– |
Toronto |
9 |
7 |
.563 |
– |
Tampa Bay |
8 |
8 |
.500 |
1.0 |
Baltimore |
7 |
9 |
.438 |
2.0 |
…last place doesn’t mean all that much at the moment.
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Boston: Boston split their four game series with Baltimore and dropped two of three to the Rays in Tampa Bay; their starting pitching was very mildly better this week than last — Wade Miley still wasn’t able to get through six innings, but at least held the Rays scoreless in his start, and Clay Buchholz had two starts decent enough to shave three runs off his 7.84 ERA coming into the week’s action — but the staff remains “anchored,” if you can call it that, by Joe Kelly and his 4.04 ERA (101 ERA+). This is only the fourth time through the rotation, but none of this is particularly surprising given the quality of pitcher Boston decided to invest in this offseason. What is a bit surprising — at least relative to the hype surrounding him to begin the season — is that Boston super-phenom Mookie Betts has only a .594 OPS to start the year, a line dragged down by a hideous 3-for-22 slump over the past week. Betts probably isn’t as good as a lot of Sox fans and media have been saying he is, but he’s almost certainly not as bad as this. Hopefully he and the other struggling Sox regulars (Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino, and Pablo Sandoval) will wait until after the weekend’s series in Baltimore to turn it around.
New York: The Yankees, meanwhile, have turned on the burners. Alex Rodriguez is hitting like he’s a decade younger, with 4 HR already to start the season — and a fight with his team looming over the bonus they agreed to pay him for passing Mays on the all-time HR list — and both Stephen Drew and Brett Gardner have stepped up over the past week as well. New York is 6-1 over the past seven days, sweeping the Rays and taking three of four from the Detroit Tigers in unseasonably cold weather in Detriot for mid-April, with snow garnishing the last couple games. The offense has been important, but more crucial to the Yankees’ success has been allowing just over 2 runs a game across the past week’s slate. Whether this means Tanaka, Sabathia, and company have figured things out remains to be seen — their biggest (and most improbable) test of the year starts tonight in Queens.
Toronto: Not the most popular team in Baltimore at the moment, I’d imagine. Sometimes a three game sweep by a team teaches you something you didn’t already know about your club. Other times, it’s just a beatdown. Toronto’s sweep of the Orioles this week was the latter. Atlanta took two of three from the Jays at the start of the week thanks mainly to poor pitching performances from starters Daniel Norris and Drew Hutchison — the same Drew Hutchison that turned around and was great for Toronto against an arguably superior Baltimore lineup. These things happen from time to time. One thing that’s not limited to this most recent series, however, is how great rookie second baseman Devon Travis looks to start the year. If you’re looking for guys already pacing the pack in the Rookie of the Year running, he’s a guy to watch.
Tampa Bay: They’re still keeping pace, mainly thanks to the kids — OF Kevin Kiermaier and Steven Souza (the team leaders in OPS among regulars) along with starters Chris Archer and Jake Odorizzi (both with ERAs below 2.00), are all 26 years old or younger. That said, the team isn’t going to get far with Nate Karns and Matt Andriese continuing to eat innings. Luckily for Tampa Bay, Drew Smyly returns from the DL tonight to make his season debut against the Blue Jays. If everything goes to plan, Karns and Andriese will be either in the pen or the minors by months end. Also of note: to make room for reliever Brandon Gomes, the Rays DFA’d Grant Balfour — turns out the Orioles were right to shy away from that contract a couple years back, if not at all tactful in their doing so.
The Week Ahead
BOS: @ BAL 4/24-26; vs TOR 4/27-29
Boston’s pitching isn’t getting a rest yet; two more series against the other two good offenses in the AL East. The flipside, of course, is that so far their own pitching has arguably been almost as suspect.
NYY: vs NYM, 4/24-26; vs TB 4/27-29
The Yankees get a weekend series against what is, improbably, the hottest team in baseball: the New York Mets. Then they get a perhaps more expected three game set against the Rays across the city in the Bronx.
TOR: @ TB 4/24-26; @ BOS 4/27-29; @ CLE 4/30-5/3
The Blue Jays head out on a roadtrip, visiting Tampa and Boston before leaving the East and heading out to Cleveland to visit an Indians club having one of the quieter rough starts to the season.
TB: vs TOR 4/24-26; @ NYY 4/27-29
Drew Smyly should be starting the first game of the Toronto series and the last game of the Yankees series — how he pitches in his first two starts back from the DL should set the tone for how the Rays play at the beginning and end of the week.
Jonathan is a contributing writer for VICE Sports. His work has previously appeared in Sports on Earth, Baseball Prospectus, The Classical, and ESPN’s SweetSpot Network. Born in central Maryland, Bernhardt currently lives in the New York metropolitan area.