April has come and gone and baseball is now in its second month of the season. So, here’s a look at three series to watch in May, which include Mike Trout, Manny Machado and Buck Showalter.
Tampa Bay Rays at Los Angeles Angels (May 9 to May 11)
Is this the year we finally get Mike Trout in the postseason again?
The Los Angeles Angels have enjoyed a strong start to 2022, with a 15-10 record that currently leads the AL West by 1.5 games. This strong start is certainly excellent news for the many neutrals who would like to see Trout return to the playoffs for the first time since 2014.
Unsurprisingly, LA’s strong start has coincided with Trout absolutely hammering the ball. His 1.179 OPS is second in baseball and only three players have more extra-base hits than him.
Trout’s excellence is to be expected, so let’s focus on another Angel enjoying an outstanding start to the year: Taylor Ward. In 159 games from 2018 to 2021, Ward had an OPS of .693. So, it’s awfully surprising to know his OPS for this season is a remarkable 1.190.
A 1.190 OPS would be fantastic in any season, but it’s especially noteworthy during a season where the offense has been down across the sport. The best way to put this into perspective is by using OPS+, which measures a player’s OPS relative to the league average. Ward’s OPS+ is currently 248, which means his OPS is 148 percent better than the league average. While many hitters have struggled to find production to begin the year, Ward has dominated the league like he’s prime Barry Bonds.
It’s virtually impossible that Ward will keep an OPS+ of 265 for the rest of the season, but it does highlight something the Angels have always needed and rarely gotten in the Trout era: other players making meaningful contributions.
Ward’s start has also helped offset Shohei Ohtani’s pedestrian beginning to 2022 at the plate. His OPS is under .700 and the Statcast data says his average exit velocity and hard-hit percentage are both down from 2021.
On May 9, the Angels will start a series against a team that provides an intriguing contrast as an organization: the Tampa Bay Rays.
While the Angels have regularly missed the playoffs with superstars and big payrolls, the Rays have made the playoffs three straight years despite regularly trading away some of their best players like Blake Snell and Austin Meadows.
The Rays are currently 14-10 and you probably could’ve guessed that their pitching has been very strong to start the year. They’re in the top ten for ERA, FIP and K/9 and have gotten excellent production from Shane McClanahan. The left-handed starter has a 3.00 ERA and K/9 of 14.0 this year.
The Angels are currently looking like a playoff team and now they’ll get a chance to see how they measure up against a team with three straight postseason appearances.
San Diego Padres at Philadelphia Phillies (May 17 to May 19)
The appeal of this series comes from two stars who have been linked together since the 2010 MLB draft: Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.
After being drafted in 2010, they both debuted in 2012 and hit free agency in 2018, creating a remarkably similar career trajectory that provides a fun connection for two players who have never been teammates.
You can measure their combined success with honors like MVPs and Gold Gloves and you can do it with analytics. Using fWAR from Fangraphs, they’ve been two of the ten best position players since debuting in 2012.
While Harper and Machado have many positives in common, they also have a major negative in common: their new teams haven’t enjoyed much postseason success.
The Phillies are yet to reach the postseason in the Harper era and San Diego’s only postseason success with Machado came in the first round of 2020’s expanded postseason field. The Phillies haven’t won a playoff game since 2011 and the last time the Padres won a playoff game without a 16-team playoff field came in 2006.
The pair are hardly to blame for this, but it’s still pretty noteworthy that their teams haven’t produced postseason success with their new stars and that provides another interesting angle for this series.
Harper and Machado have been excellent players since they debuted as teenagers and May 17 to May 19 will be our first chance to see them in 2022. Circle your calendars.
New York Mets at San Francisco Giants (May 23 to May 25)
After a massive offseason, the New York Mets have started the year living up to the hype.
Among their many new acquisitions, Max Scherzer and Mark Canha have two of the most successful players to start their tenure in New York. Scherzer has been an ace, with a 2.61 ERA and a WHIP under 1.000. Meanwhile, Canha’s .805 OPS is the second-best figure on the team.
However, the best hitter on the Mets this year is someone they’ve had in their organization since 2013: Jeff McNeil. After producing a .884 OPS from 2018 to 2020, McNeil had a down year in 2021 with a .679 OPS. However, it looks like he’s bounced back with a .901 OPS to begin 2022.
If I’m writing about the Mets, then I also probably need to mention their new manager, Buck Showalter. After enduring the dreadful 2018 Baltimore Orioles, it makes me very happy to see that Showalter’s first job following a 115-loss season is with a team that has better players than John Andreoli or Yefry Ramirez.
Starting on May 23, the Mets will play their second and final series of the year against last year’s NL West champions, the San Francisco Giants. The Giants surprised everyone last season by winning 107 games and have started this year with a solid 14-9 record.
The Mets took three of four from the Giants in New York back in April and another series win in the Bay Area would further demonstrate that their big offseason could pay off with a postseason appearance, or even a division title.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).