MLB Weekly Recap: April 17
After the first full week of the MLB season, some teams and players are performing up to expectations while others haven’t brought the bats up from Spring Training.
Obviously, you can’t predict a team’s season from eight to ten games, but there are some trends being shown that may continue throughout the entirety of the season.
The team that has been most impressive so far this season is the Chicago White Sox.
After winning series against the Mariners and Tigers and two games against the Rays, the Southside team stands at 6-2. This puts them at the top of the American League.
The White Sox’s pitching has been winning them games so far. Their rotation and bullpen have allowed less than three runs in five of their eight games.
What makes their performance even more impressive is that pitchers like Dallas Keuchel and Liam Hendriks haven’t been performing well. If they’re able to start clicking, the White Sox will have one of the best pitching staffs in the league.
Speaking of a pitching staff that has a lot of potential, the New York Mets’ starters have been pitching very well.
Their rotation has been shutting down batters without Jacob deGrom. When the best pitcher in baseball returns, it’ll make it very hard to win two games in a series against this team.
The one thing holding this team back is their bullpen which has been the reason for their three losses.
A team whose bullpen has been performing very well is the Colorado Rockies. Outside of Antonio Senzatela and Chad Kuhl, their starters have been struggling to start the season and the bullpen has been keeping Colorado in games.
C.J. Cron, Kris Bryant, Connor Joe and Elías Díaz have been carrying their team to their surprising 6-2 record. All four of these hitters have a batting average over .300 and Cron is leading the team with 10 RBIs.
Their explosive offense has them tied with the Giants for first in the National League.
Another surprising performance has been from the Oakland Athletics. After trading away and failing to re-sign most of their star players, many picked this team to finish last in their division and to be one of the worst teams in baseball.
Frankie Montas, Paul Blackburn and Daulton Jefferies have all had one if not multiple great starts. And when their pitching doesn’t get the job, hitters like Sean Murphy, Chad Pinder and Seth Brown bring in the runs needed to make up for it.
These performances allowed the A’s to lead the MLB in runs scored, win three games against the Rays and nearly two against the Blue Jays.
Moving to the east coast of the American League, one team hasn’t been able to pull away from the rest, as the top four teams either have four or five wins. The competitiveness is expected to stay in the division, but better winning percentages are expected from all these teams.
And it wouldn’t be the beginning of the MLB season without the Philadelphia Phillies disappointing their fans. Most of their hitters are putting up decent averages and bringing in runs, but this is coming after their starting pitching has surrendered a lot of runs.
When you have the fire power that this team has, you should be able to get runs off starting pitching and keep the team in the game. But in most of their games, opposing starters have been able to shut down the Phillies’ hitters.
Philadelphia was able to put up 10 runs against the Marlins on Saturday, before giving up 11 on Sunday. The Phillies are still trying to figure things out, but it needs to be sooner rather than later, or they could be in some trouble.
Jayson O’Connell is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jbo5216@psu.edu
