By Alex Hale, @DaSportsGenius7
It didn’t take long for the MLB Season to give us quite a few big stories. From record breaking starts, injuries, controversial finishes, and crazy weather cancelling games for teams, we’ve been through almost 2 weeks of the season and it’s already shaping up to be a crazy season. Throughout the season every so often I’m going to give my thoughts on some of the MLB’s biggest storylines. For this we did ignore the great starts of Robinson Cano, the Cubs and the Nationals because those shouldn’t surprise anyone. We instead took some teams and situations and shed a different light on them for you.
The San Diego Padres: While currently their record sits at 3-7, their first series against the Dodgers was a clear warning sign. They were shutout and swept by the Dodgers and a majority of their runs came from 2 wins in Colorado scoring 29 runs in those games. They’ve scored 8 runs in the other 8 games combined. On top of that, on Thursday Vince Velasquez of the Phillies limited the Padres to a 3 hit shutout, striking out 16 Padres. Padre fans may get the All-Star game, but they’re in for a bad season ahead of them.
My thoughts: Padres are one of those Franchises that thinks it can do a small retooling of their team and not rebuild. After last season’s failure when they traded for Matt Kemp and Wil Myers, the Padres should’ve rebuilt. They will be selling big time come July and will have a new GM next year.
The Baltimore Orioles: The Orioles have started the season red hot, jumping out to a 7-1 record. So far their pitching has been better than expected, especially in the starting rotation where Chris Tillman has emerged as their ace. We all knew their offense and bullpen were near the top of not just the division, but the American league. If the pitching staff can continue to hold down the fort all year, the Orioles could cause problems in the American League.
My thoughts: I’m not going to buy the Orioles hot start. Their rotation has proven in the past to be very erratic. While they sometimes do just enough to get the W, they lack an ace to really push them over the top. If they keep this up, they will need to acquire one. If not, this is a classic, “fool’s gold” start.
Minnesota Twins are still winless: After jumping my expectations of them last year and being one of the young teams to watch out for, the Twins have opened the season and have yet to win a game. 2015 Rookie standout Miguel Sano is only hitting .143 and the team combined is hitting only .210. The crazy part is the pitching staff has done well, led by Ervin Santana. What’s worse is the Twins’ Closer Glen Perkins was just put on the 15-day DL. In a competitive AL Central, they need to turn it around quick, or start prepping for 2017.
My thoughts: The Twins will go as far as Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano can take them. Both guys are key cornerstones to the franchise and although last year was a great first step, the Twins still got a ways to go before they’re truly ready.
Kyle Schwarber Out for Season with Torn ACL: Really bad break for the Cubs, who were expecting a lot from Schwarber after his strong rookie season and an impressive postseason campaign. Schwarber was expected to be the Cubs everyday LF in a stacked Cubs OF with Dexter Fowler, Jason Heyward and Jorge Soler coming off the bench. This forces the Cubs to play Jorge Soler everyday where probably Jorge Soler isn’t ready to play everyday.
My thoughts: Jorge Soler, first off, is a top flight talent with major upside that hasn’t been tapped into yet. This is a great opportunity for the Cubs to find out how good Soler is because if he’s as good as he was advertised coming out of Cuba, the Cubs are going to have quite the OF problem that is good to have in 2017. Tough break for Schwarber, who I believe is best suited next year to move to 1B.
Trevor Story… enough said: So much for the Rockies missing Troy Tulowitzki, the long hyped Rockies prospect has not just emerged but dominated the baseball scene in his first few weeks in the bigs. In the 9 games he’s played, he’s hit 7 HRs. While hitting in the friendly skies of Coors Field, Story’s talent is there and teams are starting to take notice. While the reality is Trevor Story won’t hit 40-50 HRs, it’s amazing that Story came into the league and hit the most HRs to begin a career with 7 HRs in 6 games. Whatever he does the rest of this year and even more so, his entire career, he’s got one of the greatest starts to a career ever.
My thoughts: Trevor Story was hyped up for the past 4 years as the SS behind Tulowitzki and the trade last year opened the door for all of this to happen. Story is the real deal and he will be the new face of the Rockies franchise with Nolan Arenado for the next few years.
So there you go, some of the big highlight stories to begin the baseball year. We’ve only been through 2 weeks of this season and already it’s looking crazy. Anything and everything can very well happen any night this season. My suggestion, enjoy it because I know this from experience, before you know it we’ll be in October ready for the playoffs. With a great group of rookies this year and emerging stars like Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, and Corey Seager among those players along with established names of Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw and Bryce Harper, if you haven’t gotten into the MLB season, you better start now before you miss out on all the fun I guarantee is bound to happen this season.
No comments:
Post a Comment