It’s Early, Things Are Weird
Posted by Geoff Young on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 8:19 am
It concerns me that my teams are doing so well in the early going. If this were September, I wouldn’t know what do with myself. Thankfully it’s still only April, so there’s plenty of time for normalcy to be restored.
The Padres are off to a ridiculous start. I have no idea how they’re doing it, but they are.
My adopted American League team, the Kansas City Royals, is playing well. It helps that Zack Greinke, my preseason pick to win the AL Cy Young Award, hasn’t allowed a run in his first three starts. Actually, the entire rotation is ablaze. Sure, it’s only 12 games, but a 2.76 ERA is solid no matter how you look at it.
Greinke is a stud, and Gil Meche is decent (if a bit expensive), but positive contributions from Kyle Davies and Sidney Ponson? Go figure… Extract Kyle Farnsworth and Horacio Ramirez from the roster, and this team becomes dangerous.
On offense, new first baseman Mike Jacobs is off to a hot start. It took him all of two weeks to outhomer last year’s starter, Ross Gload.
Catcher John Buck and new center fielder Coco Crisp are also playing well. Crisp has taken it upon himself to single-handedly improve the Royals’ on-base percentage. He’s drawn 11 walks already. That’s more than Miguel Olivo drew all of last year.
Speaking of Olivo, he’s at zero walks and 13 strikeouts in 24 plate appearances in 2009. He now owns a tidy 7.22 K/BB ratio for his career. That isn’t quite Rob Picciolo territory, but it isn’t pretty. Then again, hacking is Olivo’s specialty, so I’m not sure what else he would do.
Last year’s unexpected hero, Mike Aviles? He hasn’t arrived at the party. Neither has Alex Gordon, who won’t get a chance until the end of June thanks to hip surgery.
Moving north, I’m happy to see the Toronto Blue Jays playing well. As you may recall, when I chose to follow the Royals last year, the Jays were also on my short list.
I visited Toronto back in 2005 and loved it. Also, our late colleague John Brattain was a huge fan. Whenever I see that John’s team has won, it brings a smile to my face. So, yeah, I’m kind of rooting for the Royals and the Blue Jays this season.
Is that wrong? I mean, in theory you could root for all 30 teams and claim ties to a World Series winner every year.
Well, I’m only rooting for three: The Padres, the Royals, and the Blue Jays. Right now they’re all doing well. Do I expect that to continue? I don’t worry about it much. Carpe diem, baby; carpe diem.
You could always root against all 30 teams and claim to be right each time they are eliminated. That’s being right 29 times vs. being wrong once… that’s not too bad.
The Blue Jays are off to a ridiculous start, and as long as they can put those runs on the board they are gonna be a real threat. I’m not quite sold on KC, partly becaue they are in what looks like is going to be a tough AL Central this year.
Brian: I like the way you think.
jbviking: I agree about the Royals for the reason you mention as well as the fact that there are way too many holes in that lineup and the pitching staff, despite its hot start, isn’t strong enough to carry the team. That’s the beauty of April, though; we get to dream about such things.