Athletics Update: So Much For That Edition

 

Did y'all enjoy the brief instance where the Sacramento Athletics were in second place? Wasn't it fun? Well, after a 2-9 skid, that's all a thing of the past. After a good couple weeks of looking pretty decent, the A's have returned to their regularly scheduled mediocrity. Yet...there still exists the slightest chance of a rebound.

The Athletics, for the first time in a while, have multiple people they can seriously count on. J.P. Sears and Luis Severino in the rotation, Soderstrom, Rooker and Wilson at the plate, Holman and Sterner in the 'pen, and potentially people like Butler and Miller if they stop slumping. The core is finally developing, and you can actually see an identity in this A's team. Which is ironic, considering that until this team gets to Vegas, they're in their single most anonymous era of the team's history. Even the Kansas City teams had an aesthetic to this. What are people gonna say about the lasting historical appeal of the No Use For a Location A's? Sacramento has its own basketball team, it has name brand recognition, but apparently not enough for a baseball team to allow the use of it. 

Jacob Wilson is the kind of player a team like the A's can base the next couple years off of. He's an extraordinary contact hitter, already hitting .343 with 26 RBIs, and he's the highest valued position player with a 1.4 WAR. So far he seems to be a reverse negative of his father Jack, who played for the Pirates for most of the 2000s. Jack was a defensive whiz at short but only really contact hit during his peak season in 2004. Meanwhile, Jacob is an excellent contact guy with below-average shortstop ability. Hopefully he works on that as the A's essentially give him the position. I'm excited for the prospect of a Wilson-Gelof DP combo, with no offense towards Luis Urias, who's been above average filling 2nd so far. 

The rookies have also been pretty exciting. Gunnar Hoglund has 3 starts under his belt and has a 3.78 ERA with 15 Ks. With J.T. Ginn down, he seems like a pretty sturdy solution at SP5. Meanwhile, both Justin Sterner and Grant Holman have been excellent bullpen pieces in their first full seasons of MLB play. Not every 2025 rookie has completely met expectations, as Max Muncy needed more time in the minors and Nick Kurtz hasn't gone above .200 yet, but the A's are building this at the correct pace.

Even if the A's got swept in the bay area classic, and lost a series against the Dodgers, they're not exactly out of the race. It's still May, there's still a peak underdog period ahead, and there are still pieces the team can regain that can make them good again. If something doesn't happen this year, I predict there'll be a competitive team once the Vegas residency begins.

Coming Tomorrow- A team so bad, even the breakout catcher seems like a disappointment.

What It Takes To End a 13-Game Winning Streak

 

Of all teams to go from completely joyless to an atom bomb in a matter of weeks, I was not expecting the Minnesota Twins. The last time I checked their WAR leaders to make a custom, there was a lot of shrugging. 'Matt Wallner I guess'. 'Harrison Bader's got a high WAR at least'. Like I didn't get many definitive answers about who was actually leading this team, or where the energy was coming from.

On April 20th, they were 7-15. Now they are 26-21. Something clicked. And as evidenced by that 13-game winning streak, whatever the team hadn't found in the first month of play is powering this team now. But two elements are important here- the Twins being able to go on a 13-game streak, and the Brewers being the team to beat it.

Looking at this run, 7 of these wins were against teams that have been pretty good this season. Two wins against the Red Sox, kicking off the streak, a sweep of the Giants, and two wins against the Brewers to end the sweep. And that's honestly more than I expected, because sometimes when these streaks happen, it's the result of a swatch of scheduling decisions that benefit the streaking team, and a lot of bad teams just lining up. But the Twins going on a 13-game winning streak does not reflect having to play a lot of bad teams. There's only one bad team they really played in this stretch...and it is the Baltimore Orioles. Who they took 6 games from in the span of a week. If you want to root the Brandon Hyde firing to anything, it may have been the two Twins sweeps in a week, including 1 shutout. 

And it's not like, even during the streak, the Twins were this overpowering monolith with no flaws. 6 of those wins were within 2 or less runs. Two of them came in Simeon-Woods-Richardson starts where he gave up the entirety of the opposing teams' runs. In fact, sending Woods-Richardson down to bring up Zebby Matthews was the move that led to the end of the streak. Maybe if they'd have gone with David Festa it'd still be going on? 

And you also have to take into account that during this streak, there was a notorious collision between Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa which led to both being out on concussion protocol. Once again, Buxton and Correa were having terrific seasons, and they just have the worst luck getting through a season without a calamity like this befalling them. Buxton's been incredible, with 10 homers and 27 RBIs, plus he's reliable in center once again. Correa's numbers were just ticking up before his injury break. That's two crucial pieces of the lineup right there, and it illuminates how reluctant a lot of the other guys are to step up. Royce Lewis is only hitting .205, Brooks Lee's only hitting .250, Carson McCusker hasn't lit up yet. There was promise with Luke Keaschall but he immediately got hurt. The pitching is strong enough, and the power core is reliable enough, that a lot of very meh seasons have led this team to 2nd place. They can grow past it and continue at this pace if people start truly stepping up, but that'll take a bit more from Trevor Larnach and Ryan Jeffers.

Now, as for the Brewers ending the streak, it illuminates that despite some of the rough luck the Brewers have had recently, they're still inherently a good team. Right now Jackson Chourio is only hitting .242, Christian Yelich's comeback has been forgettable, Joey Ortiz and Caleb Durbin aren't hitting, Brandon Woodruff still isn't back yet, and the team is in fourth. A huge chunk of what made this team playoff-ready last year is either missing or ineffective, and a lot of other competitors have been taking 2 or more from them on a regular basis.

The most worrying factor in the Brewers' 2025 season thus far has been the impact the rookies have had on this team. So far this season, the Brewers have called up Caleb Durbin, Oliver Dunn, Chad Patrick, Logan Henderson and Craig Yoho. Five really big organizational pieces. Only Patrick and Henderson have made much of an impact, and in a season where Woodruff, Quintana, Civale and Cortes have had injury issues, it's a very good thing. Henderson's won both his starts so far, and has a 2.45 ERA, while Patrick has taken on the Tobias Myers role of 'rookie workhorse' [which...maybe go easy on him next year], and has a 3.35 ERA through 9 starts. But Durbin's struggled, Dunn once again could hit nothing on an MLB stint, and Yoho struggled mightily in 5 relief appearances. Jefferson Quero is still on the 40-man, and honestly they should wait til he's ready given all of that.

Yet there are still pieces of this team capable of greatness. Rhys Hoskins is getting hot, raising his average to .288 with 5 homers and 25 RBIs. Brice Turang is also hitting .288 with 12 steals. Abner Uribe, finally healthy has lived up to the hype and has been a terrific setup man. And once again, Freddy Peralta, the last of the big three standing at the moment, has taken the ace status without cowering, with a 5-3 record, a 2.59 ERA and 57 Ks. Recently he struck out his 1000th batter, and as his 30th birthday approaches he's still one of the most reliable and consistent strikeout artists in the game. 

If the Twins, with all their flaws, are good enough to go on a 13-game winning streak, it's only fitting that another flawed-but-decent team like the Brewers would be the team to end it. These things have a habit of balancing out.

Coming Tomorrow- His dad was a contact machine at short for a low-level competitor, but at least that team wasn't playing in a minor league park. 

The Wrong Team is Under .500

 

One of the things I do not like is when a team begins playing terribly and then midway through decides that they were actually good all along. Especially when said team had every opportunity to be good from the start. The Blue Jays and Cardinals did this all the time in the 2010s, and it would infuriate me to no end. Just pick a direction and stick with it. It's cool when an underdog does this, but when you're already on track for 100 wins and just lose 18 in April just to make it difficult, it's not cute.

That's why this whole Braves thing has been frustrating me. The Braves started the season by losing their first 7 games, and thanks to a scorching May are only now peaking their head above .500. They did this during a series against the Red Sox, an actual good team that's been actually good from the start, and has multiple good players outdoing expectations. Meanwhile, the Braves are still without like 4 or 5 great players and are getting very mediocre stuff from some of their biggest stars, and suddenly they're acting like they were doing this all along. If they were doing this with Acuna and Strider it'd be a different story, but they're doing this on the backs of people like Drake Baldwin, Nick Allen and Grant Holmes. This is verging on Astros levels of skeletal competition.

Like, look at Chris Sale. Chris Sale, after his unbelievable Cy Young season, battled worries that he'd blown his arm out again and would go back to his hurt self. That didn't happen. He did, however, have some very rough starts in April, and now he's gotten his ERA as low as 3.62. He's still a really tough pitcher, and he has 72 strikeouts through 10 starts, but the unstoppable quality of 2024 has lessened a bit. Now he's...a little closer to human, despite still being Chris Sale. And that's what a lot of these guys are, just a bit closer to human. Matt Olson has 9 homers but he's hitting .232. Spencer Schwellenbach had a killer start but has leveled his ERA to 3.31 with 3 losses. Raisel Iglesisas has 8 saves with a 5.89 ERA. Statistically, things are going well for this team, but it's happening in a way that doesn't require the team to actually be good. Like, the team's infrastructure and organization is so strong right now that something that would kill a worse team is only slightly inconveniencing the Braves.

And now you're hearing that Ronald Acuna's killing it in Gwinnett, and he might be back soon, in addition to Craig Kimbrel, who's progressing in the minors. Considering that the only above-replacement outfielder at the moment is Eli White, Acuna's return could not come at a better time. I don't know if it'll save the team though, or elevate them from a hanging-on club to a good one, but...anything to get the Braves out of this 'nominally good' stage they're currently in. If you're gonna compete, compete, don't do whatever the hell this is.

Coming Tonight: A guy who's never had a great start that couldn't be halted by something ridiculous and unfortunate. 

Late Spring

 

The Blue Jays, at the moment, are sort of a mixed blessing of a ballclub. They are doing well, hedging in and out of .500, and have gotten production from Guerrero, Bichette and Springer. Yet one stat that is very troubling to me is that Daulton Varsho, who's only been healthy for 13 games this season, has 6 home runs, a mark that nobody else who has been playing this whole time has been able to top. Vladimir Guerrero, in all his money, has only hit 5 home runs this year. Just as a reminder, every season since we got back from the pandemic he's hit over 25. One year he hit 48. But no, so far he's only hit 5 homers and 20 RBIs, which is a very light total for a month and a half of play.

I also look at George Springer, who has shown that he can still be incredible, but the magic might be going away. In April, Springer hit .306 with 12 RBIs and 4 steals. So far in May he's hit .196. Same pace of RBIs, he's got 6 already, but the production has gone way down, and he's looking more like he did last year. He is, to be far, 35, and isn't as consistent as he was in Houston, but after a start like that where it looks like you've got your leadoff guy back, this drop-off just hurts. Springer obviously wants to succeed, but we're getting to the point where he's clearly past his prime and isn't contributing as much as his younger contemporaries.

The upsetting part is there's a lot of spots on this team filled by people who may have been the answer at one time but aren't performing well enough to earn the designation. Will Wagner and Jonatan Clase were both prime rookie picks heading into the season that aren't hitting. Alan Rosen was given left field out of camp and just couldn't do anything with it. Easton Lucas and Bowden Francis both have ERAs over 5, after all that promise, and Jake Bloss, who was a big piece of the Kikuchi deal, still has yet to make his 2025 debut. And focusing on Vlad and Bo, who were ONCE the big young stars but are now mellowing out while the actual young stars are...sort of there...is an odd tactic. 

I also think about the fact that three of the team's big postseason moves [Anthony Santander, Andres Gimenez and Max Scherzer] haven't really panned out. Tony's barely hitting, and the other two have been hurt. So any attempt to really build this team back up just hasn't worked, and a lot of it really isn't the Jays' fault.

There's always a way for this team to turn things around, and June is famously the month the Jays tend to get hot, but...I don't know if this sort of dysfunction can really be fixed. At least not at this level of it.

Coming Tomorrow- We were all worried, but never fear, this guy still has plenty of time left to strike everybody out.

Pirates-Phillies 5/17: A Thousand Scorching Liners

 

Continuing Rivalry Weekend, which until earlier this week was a weekend that I'd assumed was only going to contain one baseball game, myself and the family made it to a game that was thankfully much closer than the previous one. Being so close to the sports complex in Philly is a very good thing, and it's not a bad drive at all, which is why we go to the occasional game. Phils-Pirates felt like a safe bet, as it was our guys against a much worse competitor. Sometimes you have to take the gimmes when you can.

What was interesting about a Phils-Pirates game is that, because it was inter-state, there were a lot of Pirates fans in the building. Which I'm fine with. They're a nice fanbase, they can be passionate. It's nice seeing some 30s in the crowd, I hope they can rep Skenes for as long as possible. There were some rowdy Pirates fans by where we were sitting. One in particular was over served and seemed to be shouting for the duration of the entire game. It was...not fun. 

But the game itself was at least something to behold. First of all, these were our seats, right down the 3rd base line and much closer than I'd anticipated. We were very close to the action, and had a very nice vantage point of the mound-to-plate line. We were also not far from the Pirates dugout, and at one point I saw Mitch Keller come over and talk to some fans. 

As it is Armed Forces weekend, the pregame ceremony saluted a long line of army vets in the audience, and the teams wore those white, faded-camo caps. Even after knowing the significance of them, I still don't love them. 

The matchup seemed to be pretty straightforward. The Pirates were starting Carmen Mlodzinski, meaning we were like a day off from seeing Skenes. While the Phillies brought in their ace Zack Wheeler to start. I'd seen him start before, and he's always a thrill but I believe the last time he gave up some homers. Still, he's been fantastic this year, so I was prepared for anything.

Zack Wheeler and this Pirates lineup was a match made in heaven. Over six innings he allowed only 3 hits, 1 walk and no runs, in addition to striking out 6. The man was DEALING. There was an occasional base occupation by a Pirates hitter, but it never amounted to anything. He lowered his ERA to 2.57 and got his 6th win. With everything that's gone on with Aaron Nola this season, continuing to see Wheeler's peak years with this team has been very relieving. He really is that dominant, big game pitcher that every great team needs. It's upsetting he never got all the way there with the Mets, but he's been great here.

The Pirates lineup in general did exactly what you'd expect, which is...not much. I don't know if it was Wheeler being on or the Pirates not having much, or both. Hayes, Reynolds and IKF had little hits at some point. Oneil Cruz, the one guy I was worried about, went 0 for 4 with 3 Ks. Cutch also struck out 3 times.

And Carmen Mlodzinski, uh...well he was doing well enough, and then the 4th inning came around and like 20 line drives happened. There were already runs on the board to this point, Schwarber had an RBI double in the first, Bryson Stott had a solo homer. But the fourth was just the contact olympics. Bohm got on, Marsh doubled, then Stott hit a deep single that got them both home, then Harper doubled Stott home once Joey Wentz took over. Like yesterday's, there wasn't much need for home runs, it all came down to hammering the gap. The heroes, people like Stott and Harper and Schwarber, were exactly who you'd expect, and I'm glad they can get the job done.

After that the game coasted by. It was a packed house, but a very happy crowd. Right when Matt Strahm went in during the 7th, they had a 'lookalike cam', and as it turned out me having shoulder-length hair made me look an awful lot like Strahm, so I got on there. That's a compliment. There were people that got up there for looking like Santa Claus or Walter White, but I got on there for looking like the reliever that collects cards. Gotta love that. 

As we were heading to the car, the Phils' bullpen let a 2-run Bryan Reynolds homer go by, but thankfully that was the full extent of the damage, and they got out of there with a 5-2 victory. This was the Phils' second game in a row where they let runs go in the ninth, so thankfully they padded the lead enough that it didn't kill them. 

Despite the efforts of some local drunks, I enjoyed the game, and glad my weekend of in-person baseball experiences went 2-0. Next I'll be going a little further south in a few weeks for a very cool MLB experience. 

Mets-Yankees 5/16: An Army of Boos

 

They call this the Subway Series...but yesterday it was a better idea to avoid the subways altogether. NJ Transit went on strike literally the day I had Yankee tickets, which was the kind of cosmic irony that just tends to happen these days. My dad and I figured it'd just be easier to get parking across the street and just drive in, and barring the obligatory traffic at the GW, it worked out. Just funny that I didn't ride the 4 to get there, as is custom. 

Going into this Mets-Yankees game, the tickets to which were handed to us just days in advance, I was very cautious. Subway series games are the exact kinds of games that the Yankees tend to misplay. Last year we bobbled a lot of games to the Mets, and it's been a couple years of the Mets just figuring out how to get past us. Especially now with Juan Soto on the team, which added an extra dimension to the rivalry. As much as something called 'Rivalry Weekend' should have consisted of a Yanks-Sox matchup, Yanks-Mets is just as important. It's far from tenuous. 

The game itself looked to be a pretty even one, judging from the fact that the majority of both teams' starters were in play tonight [barring Jeff McNeil and Ben Rice], and both teams were starting solid pitchers, the Mets with Tylor Megill, and the Yankees with staff workhorse Carlos Rodon. I was relatively optimistic going in.

So, uh...a word about the response to Juan Soto. You see...Yankee fans aren't particularly happy that Soto took the 10-year mega-deal to join the Mets. Not at all. And literally any chance they got, they let Soto hear it. The boos for this man...were tremendous. Lots of chants of 'f--k Juan Soto'. One guy a few seats over from me who kept bringing shit up about Soto's sister, which, dude, that is personal. You do not bring that to a game. I, and this should be relatively obvious, did not partake in the boos. I'm a little miffed at Soto, to be honest, but the Yanks' management screwed things up and Soto got a better deal from Cohen, so he had a right to call our bluff. I think the boos are gonna go down on a yearly basis, as the wound is gonna be less fresh going forward. But last night they were angry. And I think the Yanks were onto this, as Soto was walked three times but never got a hit. He did steal a base in the first, but his average didn't exactly go up this game. So I guess the Yankee fans won there.

Something to note, as you'll see from the picture, taken from my dad's friend's seats which I really don't like drawing attention to on the basis of my own humility, is that both teams wore white caps for the 'rivalry weekend' thing. I'm not sure if I love that. Like, I get having pink trim for mother's day or camo for Memorial Day or stuff like that, but this is just a flagrant excuse to sell shit. And it's not even something that looks good. Just kinda off-putting. 

[EDIT: I’ve been told this is for Armed Forces weekend. Don’t I come off well from that..]

Also, completely unrelated, my main observation from Yankee Stadium last night was that, more than usual, the concourse smelled incredible. More than ever there was this wafting current of sausages and barbecue that persisted throughout the game. The food still isn't as good as CitiField, but there are worse-smelling ballparks out there. Also, I did not know Goose Island was doing the 'official beer of the Yankees'. Tasted damn good.

The game itself, yes, I should probably explain what happened. So...Carlos Rodon, as he was paid to, pitched 5 strong innings. He struck out 5, he walked 4 [two of which being Juan Soto], and he allowed one run thanks to a Brandon Nimmo RBI single. Rodon cooked himself way earlier than I'd thought, getting to 102 pitches by the fifth. It was still a great start, and a low-scoring one, but it was tinged with a little suspense. Still, the majority of the Mets' lineup couldn't get anything done against him. Even Luisangel Acuna, who's had a nice start this year, was listless at the plate last night. 

As for the Yankees? Well, if I tell you nobody hit any home runs, you might get worried. Because that's one of the things this lineup does best. And I will give Tylor Megill and the Mets' bullpen credit for keeping Aaron Judge at bay, limiting him to a single on the night. But...the bases were loaded a bunch of times. And when you have contact guys like Paul Goldschmidt and Jasson Dominguez on your team...you're gonna score some runs. The third inning is where things really sparked, as with the bases loaded, Goldy smoked a single, and the throw from Lindor to first was overdone, meaning two runs scored. Lindor looked really smooth all night, so a rare error from him was astounding. Then Anthony Volpe hit a sac-fly that scored another run. Then Megill loaded the bases again and walked Oswald Peraza.  Tyler Megill's day ended at 2 and 2/3rds, which was wild. The guy's capable of great things, but he did not have his stuff yesterday, walked 5 people and gave up 4 runs. 

Then, an inning later, Max Kranick got into even more trouble, with Goldschmidt again singling in Judge after a Bellinger double got him to second. This was the moment I officially fell in love with Goldy as a Yankee- he'd infuriated me as a Cardinal, but his contact game is truly excellent this year, and he's hitting .350 at the moment. It's a privilege that he gets to play for my team, and be responsible for big contact runs like this. 

After another RBI from Dominguez, it was now 6-1. From there, the Yankee bullpen went to work, including the long-awaited return of Jonathan Loiasiga, and a truly incredible 3-K setup performance by Devin 'the Airbender' Williams, who may be finding his mojo after all. The rest of the game, needless to say, flew. The atmosphere continued to be pretty even-keel for a near-sellout teaming with royal blue. Two fans that sat in front of us kept reporting the Knicks score every 20 minutes, which was very helpful. At one point they even put it on the Jumbotron, which the fans, Yanks and Mets alike, enjoyed. 

Yerry de los Santos let a Lindor RBI go by as we were heading to the car, but Luke Weaver notched the save, getting Soto to fly out to center to end the game. Honestly, it couldn't have ended any other way, it had to be Soto. 

It was a fantastic night for baseball, and a really nice game. The Yanks can be a contact team this year, which is very nice. Paul Goldschmidt might be a Yankee favorite yet, as I was worried he'd be a Donaldson-esque past-his-prime waste of a contract. And the Soto response...is gonna be like this for a while.

The Other Corbin

 

The Arizona Diamondbacks have two star players named Corbin. One of them is one of the best hitters in baseball and an MVP favorite already. It's weird that a former Cy Young winner and one of the biggest signings of the offseason has been relegated to 'the other one', but there you go.

Corbin Burnes recently missed a start for the first time this decade basically, a slight stumble in his quest to be one of the most consistent starters in the game. It turned out that he was just a little fatigued, and got right back on the horse with a terrific start against the Dodgers, but it was a setback for all the Orioles fans waiting for him to fail. As good as Burnes was with Baltimore last year, he got out at the right time, and arguably has more room to succeed in Arizona, now that the team's still on the up-and-up with Corbin Carroll's excellent peak period. The O's are gasping for good pitching and skidding into last, while the D-Backs, while a fourth-place team, are over .500 and not completely out of the wild card race. 

Having Burnes this season gives the D-Backs even more starting security, which is something they've needed since they went to a World Series with 3 starters and some hope. We are finally seeing what a Diamondbacks team looks like with 5 competent starters...and, yes, it is a 4th place team, it may not always be at this rate. Burnes, Merrill Kelly, Zac Gallen and Brandon Pfaadt have mellowed into excellent seasons after a few crummy starts. Gallen, despite stumbling in a division matchup, eats the Mets for breakfast [as a good Somerdale resident should], and won both his starts against them. Kelly is fully rejuvenated, 4-2 with a 3.72 ERA. Pfaadt, finally fully matured, has 6 wins and a 3.73 ERA. And Eduardo Rodriguez...look, eventually it's gonna click, but it hasn't happened yet. Whatever, 4 out of 5 is much better than like 2 and a half in 2022.

And Burnes, while not exactly central in this rotation, is doing what he always does and just keeping teams down. He's got a 2.95 ERA, a 2-1 record and a 1.0 WAR. Together, he, Kelly and Gallen have 125 strikeouts. This is exactly what they wanted when they signed up.

The D-Backs themselves, while not a 1st place team, have still been pretty strong. Geraldo Perdomo is a .300 hitter with 9 steals. Pavin Smith has finally clicked as a hard-hitting DH. Josh Naylor is still a contact force, with 27 RBIs. Eugenio Suarez has 13 homers, one less than Carroll. And now that Ketel Marte's back his power bat has been boosting things exponentially. 

As strong as the top 3 in the NL West have been, the D-Backs could still be the spoiler and topple some things as we go forward. Especially if Corbin Burnes keeps being Corbin Burnes.

Coming Tomorrow: Yeah, I suppose you can keep leading him off, Toronto..