I'm not sure if I'm going to do this often, but a weekend away where I had my brother's laptop and full access to just screwing around on MLB.TV for several hours so I got to watch a whole lot of different games, but not necessarily in its entirety. As a result, here are some quick blurbs about the teams I saw from the relatively short time I watched. Really this signing for up MLB.TV might be the death of my attention span, why wait for the commerical for the game to come on, just put another on right now! Ah god our society is really going to hell; I digress.
The Marlins, like I feared, look very good- Now its early and half of the games were against the absolutely horrible Nationals, but at 5-1 the Marlins are looking like the deep and talented team they seemed on paper. Josh Johnson (in case you don't know that's him right there, you'll know who he is soon enough, like October) is absolutely filthy throwing a complete game five hitter against the Mets and looking dominant throughout with a great fastball he can locate and great breaking stuff. Add this to their already potent offense with Hanley Ramirez, Uggla, Jorge Cantu, and now Emilio Bonifiacio and Cameron Maybin, this team is very scary. Especially with the Phillies looking very pedestrian, the Marlins I think are looking like a very smart pick for the wild card.
The Phillies aren't looking so hot yet - Again, its a long season, and in truth the phillies started slow last year and the year before and I'm sure probably before that too, but I really don't like their pitching right now. Between Hamels being injured and coming back and getting shelled, the dramatic increase of innings last year for him from the year before, and Myers and his rocky season last year and his not so smooth start to the year, and question marks for the rest of the staff they don't instill a lot of faith. Then again, you look at the dramatic comeback against the braves in the 7th inning, this is a dangerous offensive team with a penchant for the clutch. It's hard to say if its a real concern, but a lot of their success rests of Hamels, and I'm not liking what I see.
The Braves Look Solid - thanks to acquisitions of Lowe and Vazquez in the rotation, the emerging play of Jordan Schafer and a host of other players the Braves look damn good so far, embarassing the Phillies on opening night and looking solid throughout, with the lone exception of the third game. Their hitting looks good so far as well, but I wonder how long that will last with no real mashers aside from McCann and Jones and a bullpen that as it showed on friday can be pretty shitty.
The Dodgers look a lot like last year, a .500 team - after their metoric rise at the end of the season thanks to the acquisition of Manny, they've become a darling of baseball critics everywhere. However after 8 games they're .500, which is exactly where they were last year. Sure Manny hasn't really gotten hot yet, but he's only one guy and that rotation just isn't that impressive with after Kiroda and Billingsley, and neither of them are exactly Koufax and Drysdale.
The Rockies Offense is very good - while the pitching is a question, that lineup hits top to bottom. Tulowitski is having a bounceback start to the season, Atkins is looking good, Spillboroghs is having a hot start, Ianetta is solid, this team is just filled with guys who are dangerous with the stick. I question whether their pitching is up to snuff but I think that offfense is the best in the division.
Maybe the Orioles are good.. they've done this in the past, but I watched them play the yankees and the Rays and they looked dominating thus far. Their lineup with Adam Jones really clicking and starting to realize his talent, Markakis and Roberts doing their thing and contributions by Mora, Pie, Scott and pretty much everyone else hitting and hitting timely they're looking pretty impressive thus far. Add in some surpising pitching by Guthrie, but also the rest of the staff like Simon, the Japanese import Uehara, and Hendrickson they've shocked the class of the AL early and often. I'm very skeptical that they can keep it up, but perhaps they can become the new AL East team to don the "pesky" monkier and give the big three some headaches between now and September.
The Demise of the Yankees was greatly exaggerated - of course as a sometimes irrational yankee fan I take losses kind of hard, especially to teams like the Orioles who I think are garbage, but as this last series against Kansas City showed, its a long season. Sure they're not a great team either and after these two series you'd like to see them more than .500, but it was reassuring after two really lousy starts to have four pretty good ones in a row by the staff, including one very impressive Sabbathia start going 7 2/3 walking none and striking out 8 I believe. Sunday's game Girardi very poorly mismanaged the bullpen to avoid sweeping them which pissed me off, especially because it ruined Joba's debut this year, but its one game.
The Indians look like garbage - Don't want to say I called it because I like Cliff Lee, but he's been horrible so far this year allowing 11 runs in 10 innings and the rest of the rotation looking like shit too. My favorite former yankee and number three starter on a supposed playoff team Carl Pavano has a muscular 81.00 ERA after his first start and the rest of the rotation like Carmona have been shitty as well. It's early and their offense looks very good but I don't buy this team at all.
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