Back again with this week’s power rankings! Thanks to Stemshul for devising the ranking system and compiling the results all year.
Look out for the the Dodgers as they tumble down the rankings. A 2-5 week, including a doubleheader sweep by the Chicago Cubs yesterday has the Dodgers out of first in the NL West. They still have the best run differential in baseball (+38) despite the terrible week, so this may just be an early season blip. Four of those losses were by one run, and although the strength of their pitching has been with the starters this year (2.88 ERA vs. 3.77 for the bullpen), the relievers certainly haven’t been poor. One thing to keep an eye on: L.A. is just 1-4 in extra inning games; another mark against the bullpen (albeit in a small sample). I think the general consensus best team in the league will rebound just fine.
Our new #1 is the Oakland A’s. It’s been a pretty weird season so far; the A’s started out with 6 losses (and 7 in 8) before reeling off 13 wins in a row. Then a 2-5 swoon followed by three straight wins to finish off this week. So, are they any good? Umm…maybe? They still have a negative run differential (-2) thanks to being outscored by 40 in the first nine games. They are 15th in both ERA (4.02) and OPS (.700). I’d say that it seems likely they will settle towards the middle and be hoping for a wildcard spot by the end of the year, but the poor start could be an aberration and they’re actually more like the 18-5 team we’ve seen since. We’ll find out as the summer continues.
Oh, yeah, and then there’s the Tigers. A 1-6 week didn’t drop them in the rankings, but only because they were already dead last. The lack of run scoring has been staggering. Before scoring 7 last night in a loss to the Red Sox, the Tigers scored 5 twice in 17 games. And that was 5 on the nose in each game (they won both). During that 17 game stretch, Detroit averaged 1.76 runs. If you exclude those two wins, it was 20 runs in 15 losses (1.33). That is almost unbelievably bad. Literally everybody is far below career norms so far, so it can’t keep going like this (can it?), but the Tigers sent out a lineup with 6 guys with an under .200 batting average and two more just over the Mendoza line. That may have happened this far into a season before, but I can’t remember ever seeing anything like it. Maybe back in 1968, the season that caused MLB to lower the pitching mound from 15 to 10 inched to help the hapless hitters out. Let’s hope that the 7 runs last night are a harbinger of better things going forward. It certainly can’t get much worse. The Tigers have more than twice the negative points in our rankings than the next worst team does. OOOF!
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