I think the Blue Jays are American this year; where are they playing their home games?

Dunedin Florida at their spring training park.

Can't feel too sorry for them there.

Tyler Naquin is on the bench for a second straight game Tuesday against the Giants.

Naquin's hot start has been extremely impressive, but Jesse Winker and Nick Castellanos have been ridiculously good, too, and while Nick Senzel doesn't rate from a power standpoint, he had a .406 OBP and is the Reds' best defensive outfielder.

The Reds will keep looking for ways to plug Naquin in, but he's just not one of their starting outfielders at the moment. In truth, he probably wouldn't have made the team at all if not for Shogo Akiyama's injury.

Gammons: We’re now in baseball’s Substance Era, and a solution is needed


By Peter Gammons 5h ago 30
It is an era, like the Deadball and Lively Ball Eras that spanned the emergence of radio in America, like the Segregation Era that Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby broke, like the era of the 15-inch mound that Bob Gibson and friends lowered, and the Steroid Era that glamorized power, shattered records and eventually denied some players their place in history.

Now, we are in the Substance Era. Yes, some — perhaps many — pitchers have always used a little something extra. There was a time when spitters were prevalent. One killed Ray Chapman. Preacher Roe wrote a piece in Sports Illustrated detailing how he threw his. Gaylord Perry was a dominant star pitcher who made K-Y Jelly famous en route to 314 wins; MLB had umpires check what they could, but only once was Perry ejected from a game, on a seventh-inning 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded after Boston outfielder Reid Nichols asked umpire Dave Phillips to check a ball innings earlier when he was in left field “and a voice came to me that said ‘no weapon formed against thee shall prosper.’” My conclusion that night was that the only rule Perry violated for all those years was Isaiah 54:17.

But never has it been as widespread, as consistent, as institutionalized, as explained in this superb piece here on The Athletic by Eno Sarris in which an experienced pitching coach stated that “almost everyone is using something.”

Last week, I had all nine pitching coaches I talked with say virtually the same thing: “The word to underline in this is something,” said one experienced coach. “The clubhouse guy in Anaheim may have had one recipe for a grip substance, but I’d guess there are about two hundred different recipes being used around the game right now. That’s one of the reasons it’s going to be so difficult to detect and break down.”

Trevor Bauer has, one way or another, been at the center of all this. He called out the Houston Astros for their ability to suddenly and seemingly magically increase the spin rate and results of any pitcher who joined the club, which many also took as a shot at his UCLA teammate/rival Gerrit Cole. At the same time, Bauer’s study, knowledge and curiosity about spin rates from 2018 through 2020 produced the largest increase in spin rate in the game. And last week, Bauer found himself in the spotlight after an Athletic report by Ken Rosenthal stated that multiple suspicious baseballs from Bauer’s April 8 start had been collected by the league for inspection. During the Dodger-Athletics game in question, the Oakland broadcasters remarked about a couple of Bauer-thrown balls that had been taken out for examination. One Dodger official noted, “Trevor doesn’t help himself,” referring to the pitcher’s public pronouncements on Twitter and YouTube, railing against the media and the league.

There are two clouds converging on this issue.

The first is that in this era of high velocity and steadily rising fastball/curveball spin rates, up go the strikeouts and stretches of time in games — like the clinching game of the 2020 World Series — when the action is the game of catch between pitchers and catchers. Major League Baseball reads the demographics, and the demographics tell them in three years Hurling from Glasgow or cricket from New Delhi (Billy Beane now owns an Indian Cricket club) may have a more enthusiastic audience among those under 25. Don’t laugh. Hurling is fast and wild, lacrosse on fast-forward with a whole lotta blood.

The other cloud is that many people in the game consider this explosion in the use of substances to be cheating. “In the end, the hitters were using steroids so they could lift, work out and recover,” says one NL general manager. “We all condemned that as cheating. But now pitchers are running up ridiculous numbers by cheating. I don’t see the difference, except that eventually we negotiated to get testing (in 2005) and figured out how to administer it. There are no clear answers as to the identification and detection processes. It’s still cheating. It still impacts pennant races. It could end the careers of certain position players. There are players who struggle with high velocity that some pitchers can accelerate with whatever they have. It’s incredible what can be used to limit detection.”

At a media seminar I attended, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency explained how athletes discovered one way to disguise amphetamines in their bloodstream was the use of Visine. Athletes doing something they don’t want to be detected will find a way.

What to make of all these developments, then? They are a product of a pitching culture that values raw measurables above all else, and that starts early.

The power/spin rate era, then, comes back to what one scouting director whose specialty has been pitching calls “the Driveline Bazooka method of pitching. The sell, especially with the proliferation of the showcases, is velocity, velocity, velocity, not pitching.” In fact, one current pitching coach says, “I think this will change, probably soon. I’m not sure this obsession with spin rates won’t end up hurting a lot of arms, as they try to pronate to get the spin. I had one pitcher who hurt his arm because he worried too much about his spin rate.”

“I think we’re going to see a turn away from this concept,” says one pitching coach. “First, there are too many young pitchers who are blowing out their arms. The second is that we can’t continue to survive with pitchers throwing four or five innings a start.”

The Astros and Yankees are projected to be two of the best teams in the American League, but in their first eight games Yankee starters pitched less than five innings five times, and the Astros had three starts — two by Zack Greinke, one by José Urquidy — of six innings.

“I wonder how bullpens are going to hold up over a full season, especially when their team is in a pennant race,” says one AL pitching coach. “For years, as we move forward with bullpenning, the overuse of the good ones shortens their careers.”

Bullpenning may be a byproduct of the lack of starting pitching, but pitching coaches who pitched in the major leagues feel the paucity of starting pitching is a result of the tendency to rush young arms to the pen and not give them time to develop. Go back 10 years to 2011, the year Cole, Bauer, Dylan Bundy, José Fernández, Sonny Gray and Matt Barnes were all picked in the first round.

Liam Hendricks led American League relievers in pitching WAR in 2019 and 2020. The only other reliever to lead his league in that category in consecutive seasons in the last decade was the Dodgers’ Kenley Jansen, in 2016-17. The last National League reliever to lead the league in saves in consecutive seasons was Craig Kimbrel from 2012-14, and the last American Leaguer was Baltimore’s Jim Johnson in 2012-13.

The difference between pitchers peaking in 2012 and 2021 is that a decade ago, young pitchers were originally starters who had opportunities to fill that broader role. Buck Showalter saw that Zack Britton and Johnson each had turbo sinkers that worked at the end of games and put them in the pen. In 1995, he started Mariano Rivera up until the last game before the All-Star break, but put him in the bullpen in the second half (“He just didn’t have a breaking ball,” says Showalter) and the next spring Mariano came up with the cutter.

Whitey Herzog brought Ken Dayley and Todd Worrell to the big leagues as starters, but Whitey watched young pitchers in the clubhouse before starts “and when I saw them walk about six innings of energy off wandering around before they went to warm up, I thought they should go to the bullpen.” Jerry Hunsicker’s Astros drafted Billy Wagner and Brad Lidge to be relievers, but Hunsicker started them in the minors to help them develop secondary pitches and learn to get out of jams of their own making. When they were ready, they became star closers.

In December 2012, following a 69-93 season, Ben Cherington signed Koji Uehara, who had been released after mediocre starting seasons in Baltimore and Texas. Uehara, who threw an 85-87 mph fastball up in the zone and a 79 mph split, had a 1.09 earned run average in the regular season, then worked 13 post-season games with a 1.31 ERA and seven saves, including the final strikeout of the World Series.

“He was as good as anyone you could ever see in that postseason,” Craig Breslow once said. After two more strong years, Koji saved seven games in 2016, was released, saved two for the Cubs and went home.


Koji Uehara didn’t need high velocity to record some spectacular statistics. (Dan Hamilton / USA TODAY)
“We don’t train starting pitchers anymore,” says Hall of Famer John Smoltz. “We train for power, for velocity, but not pitching. I was allowed to pitch, allowed to get my brains beaten in, overcome adversity and keep going, make adjustments, change. Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine were allowed to do the same. Maddux had learning times with the Cubs. Glavine had one rough year (7-17). I started 2-11 in 1991 and Bobby Cox stuck with me.”

He was 12-2 in the second half and threw seven shutout innings in the seventh game of the World Series.

“When I went to the bullpen (after surgery, from 2001 to 2004, when he logged 154 saves) I knew how to pitch out of trouble,” Smoltz says. He then went back to starting and twice finished in the top seven for the Cy Young, an award he won earlier in his career.

Dennis Eckersley was like Smoltz. He won 149 games as a starter, had one fourth place Cy Young vote (in 1978, when he won 20 games), then when he went to the A’s in 1997 was moved to the bullpen by Tony La Russa. He racked up 390 saves, won the Cy Young and MVP in 1992 and, like Smoltz, was a Cooperstown no-brainer.

Do not forget, when Smoltz was traded to the Braves for Doyle Alexander in 1987, he was 4-11 for the Tigers’ Double-A farm team in Glens Falls, N.Y. Then-Mets scout Paul Ricciarini, who covered the Eastern League, told me, “forget the record, Smoltz is the best prospect in the league.” He went to Atlanta and was 2-7, 5.88 the rest of the year. “I’d have been a reliever for life if I did that today,” says Smoltz.

Maddux thew hard when he came up, but he was 8-18, 5.56 in 1986-87. Dallas Green stuck with him; in ’88, Maddux threw 249 innings, the first of 14 consecutive 200 inning seasons. Glavine went 7-17, 4.56 in his first full season in 1988, but then-GM Cox insisted he stay in the rotation. “They each had the touch and feel great starting pitchers have to have,” Cox later said. “They never stopped learning. They were very smart, extremely athletic, and were always trying things.”

“I spent a lot of time going to the bullpen, trying things between starts,” says Smoltz. “We all did. We all learned from our failures and our successes, we learned what we could and couldn’t do, and that allows a pitcher to be honest with himself, which is very important.” As someone who covered Eckersley for close to 20 years, I can honestly say I have known few pitchers more honest about themselves. I once wrote that Eck’s walk-in song should be Jackson Browne’s “These Days,” with the line “don’t confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them,” because he accepted all responsibilities and nothing that ever happened to him was anyone else’s fault.

Hall of Famers Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz are examples of how teams can rediscover how to develop starters. “When young pitchers struggle, give them time to develop other pitches or figure out what they want to do before they become one-inning pitchers and are expected to throw every pitch with maximum effort, which so often leads to injuries,” says Smoltz. “Let them learn touch and feel.”

There is no better current example than the touch-and-feel genius of Zack Greinke. “He can change shapes of the same pitch from inning to inning, game to game,” says Astros pitching coach Brent Strom. “He reads hitters, he understands himself. He’s a three-dimensional pitcher — in and out, up and down, front and back. He is a master of speed differential and can throw the ball wherever he wants.” If you love looking at the radar gun readings on the scoreboard, Greinke’s four-seam fastball averages 88.5 mph, his change-up 86.8.

Kyle Hendricks is the Cubs’ best pitcher: 86.3 mph four-seam fastball, then cutter, curveball, changeup, sinker, slider. Ryan Yarbrough of the Rays averages 85.7 and changes speeds; to the hitter, his pitches seem to come out of his armpit and, by the way, Yarbrough yielded the lowest exit velocity of any American League starter in 2020. Joe Musgrove threw a total of 12 fastballs in his no-hitter. Hey, Clayton Kershaw’s average fastball this season has been 90.6.

What do the touch-and-feel guys have in common? “They’re all great athletes, and being athletic is a far more important part of being a successful pitcher than gun readings,” says one National League executive who is unusually gifted in evaluating pitchers. We know Maddux is a scratch golfer who won 18 gold gloves. Glavine not only won two Cy Youngs, but won four Silver Sluggers, had six seasons in which he didn’t make an error, and, oh yes, was drafted by the Los Angeles Kings the same year he was a second-round selection of the Braves. He can always claim he was drafted ahead of NHL Hall of Famers Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille.

“They all were in sync with their bodies,” says the executive. “That is so important to a pitcher. They understand how their bodies work, and pitch accordingly. Then they can focus on their feel for the ball and what to do with it, throw with low effort and be able to use all four quadrants of the strike zone. That’s pitching.” One scout suggests one watch Jacob deGrom, who was a good college shortstop, and Max Fried — who his mentor Reggie Smith believed could have been an athletic major-league center fielder — to see great examples of pitchers synced with their bodies who can not only stay over the rubber effortlessly but move to the plate with power. Mike Mussina was a Patek Philippe timepiece. Jim Palmer is a classic example, a fluid, intellectual athlete who later in his career pitched a game against Boston in which, as pitching coach Ray Miller showed off with his pitching chart, he hit every speed on the radar gun from 68 to 92.

“I think what we need to do better in the lower minors is constantly remind pitchers to think out what they’re trying to do,” says the scouting director. “That, and work on how they watch hitters and learn how to see what the hitters want to do against them. Pedro Martinez and Maddux seemed to always know what the hitter was trying to do against them by reading their swings. You can’t get that off a scouting report, or analytics. You can’t get that when someone is calling the pitches from the dugout.” Asked to name a high school or college pitcher who read hitters exceptionally, he came up with an unexpected choice: “Matt Wieters. He was a reliever at Georgia Tech, and he had exceptional feel and could read hitters. He would have been a very successful major-league pitcher.” Wieters was the fifth pick in the country as a catcher, so the pitching never happened.

Along with punishing those who break the rules on substances used to better grip baseballs, and altering development to encourage pitching and allow young pitchers to throw learning experience minor-league innings, Jim Bowden on XM MLB Radio had a creative thought: Decide what substance is legal and in what amount, and allow it to be in a small bag next to the rosin bag on the mound. “That way,” says Bowden, “everyone would have a level playing field.”

We don’t know how good Trevor Bauer would be if he, Kevin Gausman and Jon Gray all had the same spin rates, but one of his former pitching coaches says, “he’d always find a way to be exceptional because he is obsessed with greatness.” Maybe he wouldn’t be a Cy Young Award winner, but then, in a league with deGrom, he might not be one this season. He might not be better than Julio Urías, Walker Buehler or Dustin May this year, and he could still win the seventh game of the World Series.

What I do know is that a Red Sox clubhouse kid gave me a tube of K-Y jelly out of Perry’s locker, that Eck once got caught with a nail file in a playoff game, that Don Drysdale loaded up more than a few balls in his time and that Elston Howard used to cut baseballs on his shinguards before returning them to Whitey Ford. And all those pitchers are in the Hall of Fame.

So let’s standardize what pitchers use on their hands. Insist major-league teams work on the development of starting pitchers; limit the money these run, throw and thump showcases make, to the detriment of the game; and let kids play.

(Top photo of Bauer: Matt Thomas / San Diego Padres / Getty Images)

Dan Plesac and Buck Showalter said the exact same thing. Most if not all pitchers do this.

The ball is slippery.

So find a standardized way to make the grip better so no one needs to do it on their own.

Showalter even said the Japanese baseball is perfect - much tackier for grip.

The crooks are always ahead of the cops.

Right but in this case everyone wants pitchers to be able to grip the ball better. Even hitters for obvious reasons!

So the "crooks" are in the right really.

Jay Bruce will retire after Sunday's game vs the Rays, according to Yankees manager Aaron Boone.

the day before he was to be given his outright release I suppose

A lot of that happens in April

Some other ex Indians are floundering:

Clint Frazier is hitting 167 with OPS 472
Lindor is at 189 with OPS 55 [lots of walks]
no surprise that Rule 5 pick Ka'ai Tom is hitting 063 with 125 OPS
Santander is at 182 with OPS 556
Carlos Santana at 208 and 724 is good for him in April
Kluber ERA 6.10 WHIP 2.23

they never beat the Rays, so it's not that surprising that the Yankees fell to 5-10

The big bad Yankees are intimidating teams no more. The Rays seem to salivate when they play them.

Yankees have a known shortness of starting pitching, although they think they don't.
They're supposed to be great hitters but they're ahead by only few points just one AL team in batting average, [want to guess who?]

MLB Starting Rotation Tiers: Dodgers lead the way, Yankees and Braves disappoint so far

Brittany Ghiroli Apr 22, 2021 84
Welcome to MLB Tiers, part of an ongoing rankings series at The Athletic, where we’ll judge everything from playoff teams to uniforms — heck maybe even concessions — during the season.

Today, we’ll look at starting rotations. Insert the usual early-season caveat as we’re less than 20 games into 162 and there’s bound to be plenty of change. Still, each rotation has seen at least a few trips through the order and there’s plenty to like (or worry about) already. This isn’t a straight “best of” list, it takes into consideration some of the early stats, overall talent, strength of schedule and preseason projections. Teams that are in active rebuilds or pretty clear about not trying to win are in their own tier. Don’t like it? Take it to the comments…

I. HOLY SMOKES
Los Angeles Dodgers

It took the Dodgers 17 games to be the first team to cross the 100 innings mark from its starters and no one should be surprised. A deep, talented group that was predicted this winter to be the best in baseball has — through the first three weeks of the season — been exactly that. The defending World Series champions have gotten off to a great start thanks to strong performances from Clayton Kershaw and new addition Trevor Bauer. Walker Buehler has had three quality outings and Dustin May and Julio Urias round out a ridiculously talented, deep rotation that has former Cy Young Award winner David Price currently in the bullpen. The Dodgers rotation entered Wednesday already having thrown 13 more innings than any other team in baseball.

II. PRETTY DAMN GOOD
New York Mets

Jacob deGrom is must-see theatre, as the ace struck out nine consecutive batters at hitter-friendly Coors Field over the weekend and looks like he’s on a different planet than the rest of the league on most nights. But, the Mets’ early-season success hasn’t been just him. DeGrom, Marcus Stroman, Taijuan Walker and David Peterson entered Tuesday with a combined ERA of 1.95, with Stroman going eight strong innings on Sunday. Like the Dodgers, New York has a deep rotation, with the potential of Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard returning at some point in the first half. New York’s starters have the second-best ERA in baseball and also have the best FIP (fielding independent percentage), a number that strips out the role of defense, luck and sequencing to more accurately predict performance.

San Diego Padres

Yes, they just lost two of three to the Dodgers, but the Padres at least proved they can hang with the reigning champs, and a big part of that is their rotation upgrades. The Padres entered Wednesday with the second-best K/9 IP rate in the National League (10.92) and a 2.53 staff ERA. They’ve been led by Joe Musgrove, who gave the organization its first-ever no hitter. Blake Snell has been good, but should be able to go deeper.


(Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
Milwaukee Brewers

You can make the case that fourth is a little low — that’s how good the Brewers rotation has been in the first month. Milwaukee entered Tuesday with a baseball-best 1.90 staff ERA. Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes may be the most electric duo atop a rotation, with Woodruff starting even better than last season and Burnes off to a historic start with 40 strikeouts and no walks. Freddy Peralta, Brett Anderson and Adrian Houser have all pitched well to make the Brewers an imposing rotation.

III. WORTH WATCHING
Chicago White Sox

Carlos Rodón has already thrown a no-hitter and Lance Lynn twirled a complete-game shutout. The South Side group isn’t perfect (Lynn is on the IL, Rodón lasted just five innings Tuesday night) but the rotation has provided some big early-season moments. The Sox have a 3.28 staff ERA through 18 games.

Cleveland Indians

Shane Bieber alone is reason to rank Cleveland’s rotation this high, as Bieber became the first pitcher in big league history to begin the season with four straight starts with at least 10 strikeouts in each. But rotations are not built on one man alone (or the Yankees would be much higher on this list). Aaron Civale looks like the real deal and the Triston McKenzie and Logan Allen are both under 25. This is a rotation worth watching, one that could have some growing pains but has held opponents to a .197 batting average entering Tuesday.

San Francisco Giants

The Giants rotation has been a surprising strength early on this season and that, of course, begs two questions: whether it’s sustainable and tradable. As my colleague Ken Rosenthal pointed out earlier this week, the Giants entered Wednesday with the fourth-best starting pitching ERA in baseball, jumping up from 2.23 to 2.51 after Logan Webb was hit hard Tuesday night. Webb should get another start while they wait for Johnny Cueto to come off the IL. If he’s healthy, Cueto could be an enticing July trade candidate along with Kevin Gausman, Anthony DeSclafani, Aaron Sanchez and Alex Wood who are all on one-year deals. For now, let’s enjoy San Francisco’s early pitching prowess, which includes Gausman’s six scoreless innings Monday over the Phillies and DeSclafani’s 2.14 ERA in his first four starts.

Minnesota Twins

This whole list boils down to three categories: the haves, the have-nots and the “have not seen enoughs” and the Twins, thanks to a recent COVID shutdown, are among the burgeoning group in the last category. Still, before the shutdown and amid a losing streak, Minnesota’s rotation — led by José Berrios — was going to be a big part of their success. They’re in this tier for a reason: they’re worth watching.

Miami Marlins

The Marlins are young and fun and entered Tuesday with a respectable 3.24 staff ERA, good enough for eighth in baseball. Simply put, they’re trending up and their young pitching, a hallmark of last year’s surprise playoff spot, is the backbone of the roster. Sandy Alcantara, Pablo Lopez and Trevor Rogers have been solid as of late and top pitching prospect Sixto Sanchez’s return is around the corner.

IV. AVERAGE JOES
Tampa Bay Rays

Sure, the Rays lost Snell this offseason via trade but watching Tyler Glasnow shut down the Yankees recently is hardly a consolation prize. Tampa Bay isn’t known for deep starts and they’re already averaging under five innings per game through the first 17 games. Still, their 2.80 FIP suggests they’re pitching a lot better than the staff ERA (3.81) indicates. You could make a case they belong up a tier.


(Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Toronto Blue Jays

The bad news: the Blue Jays have been hit hard by injuries on their roster in the first few weeks. The good news: the Jays could use their top trio to help them brave the storm. Hyun Jin Ryu and Steven Matz, are a combined 4-1 in their first six starts with a 1.69 ERA. Robbie Ray went five shutout innings in his last outing.

Philadelphia Phillies

The Phillies have a lot of problems and were this a regular team ranking they would have tumbled out of the top tier like they did over at The Athletic’s power rankings. But the problem hasn’t been Zack Wheeler, Zach Eflin and Aaron Nola, who all entered Tuesday with at least three starts and ERAs under 3.20. Matt Moore imploded in a short game he exited with an injury, but even still, the Phillies’ rotation ERA currently sits around 4.

V. Boy, they can really hit!
Kansas City Royals

First: Danny Duffy has been terrific. Through three starts, he has a 0.50 ERA with 19 strikeouts against six walks. But the strength of a surprisingly good Royals team has been mostly a result of the lineup. Kansas City entered Tuesday ranked 18th in ERA (4.32) and 12th in FIP (3.71), with Duffy and Brady Singer helping bring down the bloated early ERAs of Mike Minor and Brad Keller. Keller, who failed to make it through two innings on Tuesday night, has been of particular concern.

Cincinnati Reds

I need to apologize to the Reds: the offense is more, much more, than Joey Votto. The Reds are raking, there’s no doubt about it. The rotation, at a 4.14 ERA through the first 16 games, could use some help though. The good news is that’s plausible, with Sonny Gray returning from the IL and Luis Castillo showing some potential signs Tuesday night of moving forward. Until then, enjoy the offense.

Boston Red Sox

Imagine picking Boston to have a better rotation ERA than the New York Yankees three weeks into the season, and nearly .7 of a run better FIP (3.58 vs. 4.25 as of Wednesday). Will it last? Probably not. First-place Boston, like the Reds and Royals, are off to a hot start facilitated in large part by its lineup. But the much-maligned rotation hasn’t been as bad as projected, either. Nathan Eovaldi has a staff-leading 3.04 ERA and Eduardo Rodriguez’s return should help.

VI. Things have to get better… right?
New York Yankees

Putting a rotation with Gerrit Cole in it this far down feels weird. But while the offense has the primary problem for the Yankees, anyone not named Cole has given them mixed results, at best. A rotation that also includes Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon has a lot of talent and they have to be better than this. More specifically, they have to go deeper. New York got just 68 1/3 innings out of the rotation in its first 15 games, 24 2/3 which have come from Cole. They entered Wednesday with the third-worst home run rate in MLB at 1.84. Taillon, who the team will be careful in pushing, threw five innings of one-run baseball Tuesday to lower his ERA more than two runs. It’s not much, but it’s a start.


(Abbie Parr/Getty Images)
Houston Astros

Zack Greinke has been typical Greinke. But an Astros rotation that lost Framber Valdez to injury this spring has been inconsistent beyond that. Jake Odorizzi, a late signing, has struggled in his first two appearances (10.57 ERA in 7.2 innings) while Lance McCullers has been slowed with non-COVID 19 illness. Cristian Javier has impressed early but Houston is in a weird spot. Their 4.32 ERA (as of Wednesday) ranks in the bottom half of MLB, though there’s potential to get back on track.

Atlanta Braves

Like the Yankees, the Braves entered the season with what was widely considered to be a top-tier rotation with both depth and talent. And it’s been a disaster. Last week they lost starting pitchers Max Fried and Drew Smyly to the injured list and they entered Wednesday with a bottom 6 starting ERA (5.31), trailing only the Nationals in home runs allowed per nine innings (1.91). Charlie Morton did turn in a badly-needed quality outing Tuesday against the Yankees, but this is a real test for the Braves.

Chicago Cubs

It’s tough to trade away Yu Darvish in the offseason and say your rotation is better off. The Cubs staff has a 5.64 ERA, and everyone not named Jake Arrieta (who owns a sub-3 ERA in his first four starts) has been worrisome. The Cubs starting staff ranks atop BB/9 (4.08) and entered Wednesday with the second-lowest K/9 rate (7.32).

VII….Right??!?!
St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals’ poor starting pitching has been a big early-season issue, at times leading to a heavy bullpen workload and showing up in some ugly losses. Figuring things out behind ace Jack Flaherty is a necessity, with St. Louis’ starting ERA ranking among the worst in baseball. Miles Mikolas is weeks away from a return. Carols Martinez and Adam Wainwright started the week with ERAs north of 7, though Wainwright’s seven innings of one-run baseball Tuesday is encouraging.

Washington Nationals

COVID-19 delayed their season. Stephen Strasburg is hurt. Joe Ross got lit up Monday night. Patrick Corbin, who gave up 15 earned runs in his first two starts, did toss six scoreless innings Tuesday against the Cardinals. Max Scherzer, like deGrom, is must-see theatre, even on a night when he’s not carrying his best stuff. The Nationals are a team built on the strength of its starting staff, so to see them rank next-to-last in ERA (5.72) entering Wednesday is jarring, although Scherzer’s six shutout innings against St. Louis later that day will have dropped that number. It’s also hard to imagine it continuing. Perhaps Corbin’s outing will help signify a turnaround; otherwise it will be a very, very long summer in D.C.

VIII. Help me understand

(Ralph Freso/Getty Images)
Oakland Athletics

Are these the A’s who started 0-6, tied for the worst in franchise history, or the ones who are now on an 11-1 tear, tied atop the AL West entering Wednesday? Jesús Luzardo threw a gem on Tuesday night, and if there’s a team that makes it hard to know what to expect on a week-to-week basis, it’s these A’s. Please argue about where to put them, since I have no idea.

LA Angels of Anaheim

Quick — which team in baseball has the best K/9 rate as of Wednesday? The Angels, who also entered Wednesday with a 5.23 ERA that ranked them 23rd. But wait! They have a 3.55 FIP, which means they should be better. Plus, Shohei Ohtani, who struck out six in his return from a blister and owns a 1.04 ERA (but has only thrown 8 2/3 innings). I almost put them in the “just offense” tier, and that would be fair, too. But Dylan Bundy has had quality outings in three of his first four starts. There is some potential here. Right?

Arizona Diamondbacks

Zac Gallen is back! What is going on with Madison Bumgarner and Merrill Kelly? The Diamondbacks entered Wednesday with a 5.38 staff ERA, though that’s to be expected when two of your five guys have ERAs north of 8. That alone pushes the limits of labeling them an average rotation, at least right now. A healthy Gallen should be a huge lift and Bumgarner, after allowing 17 earned runs in his first three outings, held D.C. to just one in his last outing.

Seattle Mariners

Look, the Mariners are tied for first place with the A’s and that alone propelled them out of the bottom tier. Can they last? Most people don’t think so. While the bullpen has been a big reason for Seattle’s early-season success, the rotation has a lot of questions. They lost James Paxton for the season and young arm Nick Margevicius exited his last outing with left arm fatigue. Maybe they call up pitching prospect Logan Gilbert, maybe Marco Gonzales holding the Dodgers to one run over seven innings on Tuesday was the sign of a real turnaround. The Mariners entered Wednesday with a 4.71 ERA, and their FIP (4.60) indicates that’s about right. If they’re going to keep this up over a full season, the rotation has to be more consistent.

IX. Playing for 2022 and beyond…
Texas Rangers

No one should be surprised the rebuilding Rangers are near last place, but the performance of their rotation the first 18 games has been a pleasant surprise, as they entered Wednesday with the top starting ERA in the AL (3.17). Kyle Gibson, 33, and Kohei Arihara have ERAs under 2.60 through their first four turns and 26-year-old Dane Dunning has allowed just one earned run over his first 15 innings. Their FIP (3.77) pushes them more to the middle of the pack and they aren’t a big strikeout staff, but they’ve done enough thus far to earn a top spot among the rebuilding teams.

Colorado Rockies

As a rotation, the Rockies are not bad right now, entering Wednesday with a respectable 3.49 ERA. However, a closer look at stats on the last-place Rox indicates this will be tough to continue. Their FIP is 4.23, they lead the majors with a 4.58 BB/9 rate and their K/9 rate (6.97) is the worst in baseball.

Detroit Tigers

The Tigers are piggybacking Tarik Skubal for his next few outings and will likely do the same to avoid shutting down Casey Mize. Detroit has some young arms and this season will be about juggling workloads as they continue to rebuild. Detroit lost veteran Julio Teheran to the 60-day IL, though Opening Day starter Matthew Boyd had had three consecutive quality stats and owns a 2.03 ERA and 0.98 WHIP over that stretch. The Tigers have a 3.89 rotation ERA over the first 16 games, though a 4.72 FIP (the worst in the AL) suggests a regression to the mean is coming.


(Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports)
Baltimore Orioles

John Means is fun to watch even while the O’s are still in a very painful rebuild, as he fanned nine in seven scoreless in his last outing against the Rangers. Every time I watch the Orioles I wonder, “How many current players will be part of the next great Oriole team?” Not Matt Harvey, but maybe Means and 25-year-old Dean Kremer, who was optioned recently due to off days. The O’s rotation isn’t ready to compete yet, they have a 4.70 ERA through 17 games, and trail only the Tigers and Mariners in AL FIP (4.42). But they’re at least starting to graduate guys who could be part of the future, making for some watchable moments.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Only the Mets’ starters have thrown fewer innings than the Pirates entering Wednesday and that’s because they’ve played three fewer games. Pittsburgh’s starting staff has pitched 71 innings in its first 16 games, owning a 5.83 ERA that’s the worst in baseball (as of Wednesday). The other numbers don’t help Pittsburgh much either: a 4.97 FIP (second-worst, trailing only the Nationals) and a 4.56 BB/9 rate that only trails Colorado. JT Brubaker entered Wednesday as the only starter with a sub-4 ERA and his six-inning outing Friday marked Pittsburgh’s first quality start this season.

if the average against was 197 entering Tuesday, it's certainly gone over 200 and more so since then