MLB Contenders Showing Concerning Early Weaknesses
No team is perfectly built.
This is not breaking news, nor is it to say that one team entered this Major League Baseball season resembling such a thing.
But as the season edges toward its third full week of games, a number of teams that appeared to be postseason contenders have started to show concerning deficiencies. Several teams that entered the season with high expectations are struggling with at least one aspect of the game—starting pitching, bullpen, offense or defense.
It is still early enough in the long regular season that some of these problems can be turned around or simply written off as small-sample-size blips. Then again, some could prove to be chronic problems and completely doom a club’s chances at making the playoffs.
Seattle Mariners’ Pitching Staff, Front and Back
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Pitching was never supposed to be the problem for the Seattle Mariners. In fact, it was supposed to be their biggest strength, maybe even one of the best overall staffs in the majors.
Through 11 games, the Mariners are 4-7 and in last place in the American League West in part due to a sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The reasons have been starting pitching, which put up a 5.43 ERA through those 11 contests, and Fernando Rodney and his 12.46 ERA as closer.
“If you ask me if I’m concerned with our starting pitching,” manager Lloyd McClendon told reporters Thursday, one day after the Dodgers sweep. “We’ve got to get better.”
Clearly. The Mariners entered their weekend series against the Texas Rangers with the highest rotation ERA (6.43) in the majors. Ace Felix Hernandez and J.A. Happ have been fine, but Taijuan Walker, James Paxton and Hisashi Iwakuma have been brutal. Those three combined for an 8.51 ERA through each of their first two starts.
The bullpen as a whole has been OK aside from Rodney, but the Mariners did not figure to have to use it as much as they are because of the vaunted rotation.
“We’ve got a real good bullpen,” McClendon said Thursday, “but they won’t be worth a damn if we keep running them out there. We’ve got to get better efforts from our starters.”
As for Rodney, he had given up six runs in 3.1 innings with a blown save through Friday’s games. He did not allow a run in his first two outings, but he gave up four runs to the Oakland A’s in his third and blew a lead in the ninth inning against the Dodgers on Tuesday.
The Mariners have a chance to turn this around over a 10-game homestand in which they host the Rangers, Houston Astros and Minnesota Twins. Those are all teams expected to finish well below .500 this season, which gives the Mariners an early-season opportunity to reverse some subpar pitching trends.
Washington Nationals’ Porous Defense
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Poor defense is something the Nationals have experienced recently, committing 34 errors through 37 games last season.
Through 12 games this year, the Nationals again have the worst defense in the majors. Their 14 errors, minus-18 defensive runs saved and minus-three overall defensive rating are all the worst in the majors, per FanGraphs.
The team’s overall error total could also be higher, as more than a couple of balls have fallen for hits because of defensive miscues in the outfield. The pitching staff was a victim of 14 unearned runs going into Sunday, also the most in the majors.
Shortstop Ian Desmond, who was a solid defender last season, has committed a major league-leading eight errors. He had two more critical mistakes in Saturday’s loss, both of which cost the Nationals a run in their 5-3 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies.
“Brutal,” Desmond told reporters afterward. “But I've done it before and I'm going to work my way out of it. … If this is the biggest problem in my life, I guess I'm doing all right. At the end of the year, I will look back at this and know that I made my way through it.”
“We gotta catch the ball," manager Matt Williams said earlier in the week. "…It’s always a focus for us, it’s always important to us. It will continue to be. It’s gotta get better than that, though."
As Chelsea Jones of The Washington Post remarked, the Nationals can at least take solace in the fact that they aren't the only team suffering early defensive woes.
"Saying “it’s early” only applies for so long, but it is early. The Nationals are not the only team enduring defensive struggles. Other playoff contenders — the Padres, the Dodgers, and the Red Sox — have committed at least as many errors or more. Not all the Nationals defensive miscues are counted as errors. All of their errors have led to costly runs. As Williams said again and again…and again on Monday, they must play better.
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There is hope for improvement. After those first 37 games last season, the Nationals committed 66 errors in the remaining 125 contests, finishing with 100. They’ll need to make that kind of improvement again this season if their rotation still plans on being the best in the majors.
The As-Expected Red Sox Rotation
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Once the Boston Red Sox missed on Jon Lester over the winter, were unwilling to part with certain prospects to acquire Cole Hamels and punted on the rest of the available options, their starting rotation went from having potential to rating as one of the worst in the American League.
Through the team’s first 11 games, it just about has been.
The Red Sox have a 5.58 starter ERA, the second-worst mark in the majors. In the four starts heading into Friday, the group had a 12.77 ERA over 18.1 innings.
There are signs that the team can fix this, though. Opponents are hitting .240 against the starters, the ninth-lowest average in the majors, and their BABIP is a respectable .285. So while not a ton of hits are falling in, they are impactful when they do. That is evident by the starters’ major league-worst 57.6 percent strand rate.
Eventually, that should all even out and correct itself to a more predictable zone. That's the hope this early in the year, at least.
“I think with our team one of the things that helps us win is we’re not going to have perfect outings, perfect innings all the time,” general manager Ben Cherington said on WEEI’s Dennis and Callahan show Thursday, “but minimizing damage and being able to get through those dirty innings get deeper into games.”
Unless the Red Sox acquire an ace sometime before the end of July, this figures to remain a problem for them throughout most of the season. The silver lining is their offense should be one of the best over that same time frame.
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A Completely Inept San Francisco Giants Offense
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No matter whether you believed the San Francisco Giants to be legitimate contenders heading into this season, counting them out has proved to be risky over the past five years, as their three titles over that span would suggest. Unless, of course, you subscribe to their odd-year curse.
For the sake of them being the defending World Series champions, we will call them contenders. However, the Giants have resembled more cellar-dweller than pennant winner through their first 13 games, having dropped eight straight contests before picking up a win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday.
While pitching and injuries have played a major role in the April swoon, the Giants' sliding offense has been the biggest offender. Overall, the hitters have been middle-of-the-pack in the National League, but over their last 10 games, they have combined for a .199/.281/.284 line and left 77 men on base during that span.
They were also shut out three times during the losing streak.
Prior to Wednesday's loss to the Colorado Rockies, reporters asked manager Bruce Bochy if he thought shuffling batting order positions would make much of a difference.
“It’s not going to work unless guys start swinging the bat,” Bochy said. “It doesn’t matter what order you put them in. Right now we’ve got a few guys that it wouldn’t matter what kind of batting order you put out.”
Looking at the team’s regulars and their track records, it is difficult to believe the offense will suddenly become one of the best in the league. While getting Hunter Pence back from a fractured forearm in the near future will help some, this is likely to be a season-long problem for the Giants as they struggle to secure a postseason spot.
White Sox’s Inability to Score
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Through their first nine games, the Chicago White Sox scored 25 times, the lowest total in the American League through Friday. Their .217 batting average was third-worst, their .265 OBP was next to last, and their .611 OPS was tied for second lowest. Their 15 walks were the fewest.
They’ve also had five games, all of them losses, in which they scored two or fewer runs.
That all changed on Saturday. The White Sox scored a dozen runs and tallied 17 hits in a win against the Detroit Tigers, bringing all of those averages up.
They were a middle-of-the-league offensive team last season, and they figured to improve on that by adding Melky Cabrera and Adam LaRoche to the lineup. However, Cabrera entered Saturday hitting .162/.162/.162 with no extra base hits and no walks. LaRoche has two home runs, but he was hitting .179 and leads the team, by a wide margin, with 15 strikeouts.
Those newcomers were not the only struggling culprits, either. Four other regulars—Jose Abreu, Micah Johnson, Alexei Ramirez and Adam Eaton—were hitting .206 or lower before Saturday’s offensive outburst, and among them, only Abreu had a home run.
The offense was not expected to be a major force, but it was certainly expected to be better than this as the White Sox fight for their first playoff berth since 2008. If they do not build on Saturday’s totals and completely turn a corner soon, it is entirely possible the top of the American League Central will leave them behind.
Stats courtesy of FanGraphs and current through games played on Saturday, April 18, unless otherwise noted.
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