10 Biggest Takeaways from Week 9's MLB Action
And so, the 2015 Major League Baseball season rolls ever onward. It's already nine whole weeks old!
To celebrate the occasion, we'll do what we always do at the end of the week: round up the big storylines and dig in.
This was a particularly busy week, so we have 10 storylines to cover. They range from awesome sluggers doing awesome slugger things to good teams hitting the skids to one of the weirdest baseball storylines in recent memory.
We'll go in order from least interesting to most interesting. Step into the box whenever you're ready.
10. Andrew Cashner and Noah Syndergaard Make Weird History
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They, in all their wisdom, say that one of the great things about baseball is you never know what will happen. And if you're really lucky, you might see something that's never happened before.
And you might even see something that's never happened before happen twice. Courtesy of San Diego Padres right-hander Andrew Cashner and New York Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard, that's exactly what happened at Petco Park this week.
In a 7-0 Padres defeat on Monday, Cashner authored a truly strange pitching line that involved 12 strikeouts and 11 hits in just 4.2 innings. Like that, he became the first pitcher in recorded history to record double-digit hits and strikeouts in fewer than five innings.
But Cashner was only alone in that column for about 24 hours. In a 7-2 Mets loss the next night, Syndergaard joined him by striking out 10 and allowing 10 hits in four innings.
Significant? No, not really. But something that had never happened before suddenly happening on back-to-back nights is a special kind of weird that seems to exist only in baseball.
9. Troy Tulowitzki Has Awoken
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A week ago, Troy Tulowitzki didn't look right. After hitting .340 with a 1.035 OPS in 2014, he was hitting .266 with an OPS of just .688 in his first 43 games of 2015.
Calling that ancient history now is probably a stretch...but darn it if it doesn't feel that way.
The Colorado Rockies' 30-year-old shortstop has caught fire, hitting .542 with a 1.660 OPS and four homers over his last six games. He's raised his average to .303 and his OPS to .821.
In the event you've traveled forward in time from the middle of May, you might be thinking that all Tulo has done with this hot streak is increase his trade value. But that's actually not the case.
Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reports that the Rockies are still reluctant to trade "the face of the franchise," and the team's play gives them a real excuse not to do so. The Rockies have won nine of 13, pushing their record to 24-29. If they can get to .500, they'll have a shot at a wild-card spot.
So, don't measure Tulo for new threads just yet. He's hot, and Colorado needs him right where he is.
8. Albert Pujols Has Also Awoken
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Speaking of struggling greats who have woken from deep slumbers, the club also includes Albert Pujols.
Through 44 games, the veteran Los Angeles Angels first baseman was hitting just .235 with a .702 OPS and eight home runs. He's now hitting .252 with a .795 OPS and 14 home runs, which is largely the result of a seven-game stretch in which he hit .393 with six home runs.
Pujols was especially mean to the Tampa Bay Rays in a three-game series at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, launching two home runs Monday and another on Tuesday. That was the 534th of his career, tying him with Jimmie Foxx for 17th on the all-time list.
But while history is all well, good and awesome, the Angels are presumably more preoccupied about what Pujols' power surge means for the present. They badly needed somebody to help Mike Trout carry the load on offense, and Pujols has done just that.
And he couldn't have picked a better time. With the Texas Rangers pushing hard and the Houston Astros refusing to give ground, the Angels need all the firepower they can get to stay in the AL West race.
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7. The Red-Hot Giants Go Cold
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For a while there, the defending champion San Francisco Giants were rolling. Through their first 28 games in May, they had won 21 and lost only seven.
But apparently, whatever rolls must eventually stop.
The Giants ended May by dropping two in a row to the Atlanta Braves. They then began June by getting swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates in a three-game series to run their losing streak to five in a row.
The Giants avoided further damage with a 5-4 win in Philadelphia on Friday night. Also, this skid didn't do much harm to their place in the NL West. They're still comfortably ahead of the third-place Padres and within striking distance of the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers.
There is a not-so-bright side, though: The Giants' skid was largely the result of bad pitching. They allowed a whopping 31 runs in the five games, marking quite a departure from the 3.3 runs per game they had allowed during their 21-7 stretch in May.
If nothing else, that's a reminder that the Giants have been operating with a more volatile pitching staff than usual. It was probably only a matter of time before it bit them.
6. Here Come the Pirates
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We go now from the team that was just dealt a blow to the team that dealt it: the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Pirates were 19-22 not too long ago but now stand at 30-24 after winning 11 out of 13. They're one of the hottest teams in baseball, and that's the result of key pieces coming together.
On offense, Andrew McCutchen and Josh Harrison are finally hitting. The six hits McCutchen collected against the Giants are part of a larger hot streak that's seen him hit .473 in his last 15 games. Harrison wasn't so hot against the Giants, but he's hitting .375 in his last 19 games.
Meanwhile, the Pirates continue to pitch. Their 3.04 ERA is second in MLB, and working to keep it low is the hot pitching of Francisco Liriano and Gerrit Cole. Between them, they have six straight starts of at least six innings and no more than two earned runs.
The Pirates still have a ways to go before they're breathing down the necks of the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Central. But with their having re-established themselves as one of the Senior Circuit's powers, that no longer looks impossible.
5. The Mariners Just Can't Get Right
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Remember when the Mariners were a trendy pick to represent the American League in the World Series?
That was a while ago. The Mariners have been inconsistent all season and are now exploring rock bottom after a seven-game losing streak. Their record is 24-31, and their list of problems is extensive.
Featuring prominently on it is the closer position, where Fernando Rodney is getting a benefit of the doubt from skipper Lloyd McClendon that he hardly deserves. Through 24 games, Rodney has a 6.94 ERA with 20 strikeouts, 12 walks and four homers allowed in 23.1 innings.
But a more pressing concern is Seattle's offense. It has produced just 13 runs during this seven-game skid and is dead last in the AL in runs scored overall. Bringing in Mark Trumbo can't hurt, but the Mariners will need to get Robinson Cano going and other pieces to fall into place.
Not helping is that time is of the essence. The Mariners are already behind in the AL West and looking up at three teams in the Angels, Texas Rangers and Houston Astros who won't go down without a fight.
4. Joey Gallo Is Loads of Fun
7 of 10The young hot-shot third baseman everyone was excited to see in 2015 was Kris Bryant, and deservedly so. He was a good one in the minors, and he looks like a good one in the majors too.
But enough about him. Right now, it's all about another young hot-shot third baseman: Joey Gallo.
The Rangers' 21-year-old slugger has only played in four games, but he only needed two to make a grand impression. Gallo went 3-for-4 with a double and an upper-deck home run in his debut Tuesday and added a second upper-deck home run Wednesday.
In short, he's wasted no time showing off his truly special power. And though the plan was only to use him as a temporary fill-in for the injured Adrian Beltre, Jonah Keri of Grantland writes that plans could change:
"The 21-year-old phenom’s hot start, combined with Wednesday’s news that Josh Hamilton will miss a month with a hamstring injury, has opened the door for a longer stay than initially anticipated. Whether Beltre’s injury lingers, Gallo takes over for Hamilton in left field, or the kid works his way in at first base or DH, the suddenly contending Rangers would be foolish to send him back down.
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Foolish indeed. It's only been a few games, but Gallo's power bat looks well at home in The Show.
3. Joc Pederson Really Loves Hitting Dingers
8 of 10Joey Gallo is a young man who has teased he could be really good at hitting dingers. That means he could one day be Joc Pederson, a young man who has proved he's really good at hitting dingers.
Pederson is fresh off a stretch in which he homered in five straight games, which included two homers in a Tuesday doubleheader in Colorado that combined for darn near 1,000 feet in total distance. And though he failed to run his home run streak to six straight games in Thursday night's contest against the St. Louis Cardinals, he came really close with a wall-ball double against Michael Wacha.
For the season, the Dodgers' 23-year-old center fielder is now sitting on 17 home runs in only 55 games. That puts him on pace to finish with 50 home runs, which would break Mark McGwire's rookie record.
Asking him to go that far is probably asking too much, but Pederson could well break the National League rookie record of 38. As a hitter who hits the ball in the air a lot and makes more hard contact than anyone not named Giancarlo Stanton, per Baseball Savant, his talent for hitting homers looks legit.
You know, just in case you couldn't tell by watching.
2. Masahiro Tanaka Looks Healthy
9 of 10It was easy to doubt whether the New York Yankees would be seeing the 2014 version of Masahiro Tanaka in 2015. He looked diminished in April and then went on the disabled list for a month with arm trouble.
But in Tanaka's return on Wednesday afternoon at Safeco Field, he sure looked like his 2014 self.
He was dominant in leading the Yankees to a 3-1 victory, allowing three hits and a run with nine strikeouts and no walks in seven innings. Just as important were his readings on the radar gun. He went from the 90-91 mph range with his fastball in his first four starts to averaging 92.9 miles per hour against Seattle.
"It does help work the other pitches in my favor, so it's good," said Tanaka of his rejuvenated velocity, via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. "Looking back at today's outing, I think my fastball was really good."
With Tanaka's fastball back to normal, the Yankees have every reason to be excited about what he can do going forward. Good velocity was a key part of his 2014 season, in which he had a 2.51 ERA in 18 starts before elbow trouble landed him on the DL and robbed him of his effectiveness at year's end.
If Tanaka can be anything close to the pitcher he was in 2014 the rest of the way, the Yankees' rotation would get a huge boost. That's good news for them and bad news for the AL East teams looking up at them.
1. The Tigers Badly Need Reinforcements
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The Detroit Tigers began the year by winning 11 of their first 13 games and were sitting pretty at 23-14 as recently as a couple of weeks ago.
Since then, however, things have gone south in a hurry. The Tigers have lost eight in a row and 14 out of 19 overall. They're now just 28-28 and fading fast in the AL Central.
Fortunately for them, there is hope. Beyond the fact that the AL Central is unlikely to leave them in the dust, the Tigers stand to get some key pieces back from injury in the near future, namely right-handers Justin Verlander and Bruce Rondon, designated hitter Victor Martinez and catcher Alex Avila.
Verlander could add some much-needed stability to a rotation that sorely needs some. Martinez and Avila can boost a lineup that's been painfully inconsistent outside of Miguel Cabrera. Rondon has the power arm that Detroit's bullpen is lacking.
Or so the Tigers hope, anyway. If these four fail to make an impact upon their return, the status quo could continue to be as Shawn Windsor of the Detroit Free Press summed it up: "They swing, and they pitch, and they throw, and the losses keep coming."
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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