Season of Surprise

Dave Paisley

Most baseball seasons have an occasional hiccup at the start of the season. Some perennial doormat gets off to a hot start making everyone wonder if they’ve really turned it around. Or some playoff titan gets bushwhacked early on and can’t seem to get "untracked" whatever that's supposed to mean.

This year we have a bumper crop in both categories. Even just confining myself to the American League examples abound. Last year's champion Yankees? 14-11 but a cool start and behind both Boston and Toronto. The White Sox, with 95 wins last year? 8-15 and looking bad. Last year's low budget darling A's? 8-17 -- tied for worst record in the majors with Tampa Bay. The only AL playoff team from last year doing well are the Seattle Mariners, and they seem to have everyone else's wins at 20-5. The most astonishing part of Seattle's run is that they have buried all of their division opponents in a hole 9 games or more deep.

The only team to come out of nowhere has been the Minnesota Twins with their high flying 17-6 record to lead a resurgent Cleveland team (14-9) by two games.

So let's take a look at the implications division by division.

AL East
The Yankees look just a bit long in tooth this year. The addition of Mike Mussina hasn't pushed their pitching to the top of the rankings as they must have hoped. A 6th ranked pitching staff and 7th ranked offense isn't taking them to the playoffs this year, never mind a four-peat. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are augmenting the best pitching staff in the league with the 6th best offense and making that stand up as the best overall team performance (based on runs scored divided by runs allowed) in the league. The Sox couldn't possibly have hoped for more from Ohka and Nomo to complement Pedro Martinez. It probably won't hold up that way over the long haul, but Nomar is due back eventually, so the sky may be the limit for the offense.

The Blue Jays have a little different balance -- 2nd best offense and 5th best pitching -- for third best overall. The Yankees figure to get lost in the shuffle as the Jays and Red Sox battle it out in the East. Meanwhile, Baltimore and Tampa Bay are already staking out their turf in the basement. I guess the only excitement will be to see if Cal hangs 'em up before the end of the season.

AL Central
How the mighty are fallen... Last year's high flying White Sox are in disarray. Cosmic payback for the botched Sirotka deal? Last year the offense was, well, white hot in a blistering first half, while the pitching was good. So far 10th and 11th respectively are all they can muster. And that's good enough only to be helping Detroit and Kansas City prop up the division. Meanwhile, those amazing Twins continue to keep the dream alive. 5th best offense and 3rd best pitching have them sitting pretty.

Cleveland fortunately has proud new acquisition Juan Gonzalez driving in runs like crazy (26 already) backed up by the likes of Marty Cordova and Ellis Burks. If Jim Thome, Roberto Alomar and Kenny Lofton ever get going that could be a potent offense, although they are already the third most prolific. It wouldn't hurt for Chuck Finley to get his act together on the mound, what with 6 homers allowed already. Still, I wouldn't bet against the Indians to reassert themselves in the division within a month or so.

AL West
It's always fun to have a great baseball story happening in your own back yard and Seattle's explosive 20-5 start is more fun than ever. We're still trying to figure out how this has been the fourth most prolific offense this year so far with so many guys in the lineup hitting under .200 (and no, they don't walk a lot or hit for power either.) Ally that kind of offense with the 2nd best pitching overall and a relentless bullpen and 20-5 is what can happen. Thanks to the early bout of divisional play, the Mariners were also able to hurt their division rivals in the process. 5-1 against Oakland, 4-2 against Texas and 6-1 against Anaheim was the best possible way to get the season underway.

Oakland have looked bad against everyone, hence that awful 8-17 record. Neither the offense nor the pitching have been what was expected. Young ace Tim has had good outings, but his numbers overall now are pretty bad. One noticeable problem is that their pitching staff has become walk happy. But it could be worse. They could be the Texas Rangers pitching staff.

Here's the team with the worst ERA in the league. The lowest ERA for a starter is the 6.35 currently sported by Kenny Rogers. How about Rick Helling at 8.07, or Ryan Glynn at 11.09? The only saving grace is that the offense is ranked number 1. They have six regulars slugging over .500 (and Rafael Palmeiro isn't one of them) and are pounding out 6.0 runs a game. It's a shame they're giving up 6.8. Of course, this is exactly what many of us noted when Alex Rodriguez signed on the dotted line. $300M offense, dime store pitching.

While it may be overdone, that old nugget about pitching and defense winning championships seems to have passed Mr. Hicks by.

about the author

Dave Paisley is delighted with the Mariners start to the season. And, to be honest, he's happy that the Twins are making a run at respectability. But most of all he's enjoying watching the Rangers pitching staff fall flat on their sorry asses. Why not tell him what a lout he is at drdjp@strikethree.com.