Scorecards

Dave Paisley

OK, who guessed that the Twins division winning hopes would last longer than Rivals.com's bank account? Ah, I see a few hands here and there. Pat yourself on the back and take a cookie from the jar.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks what with the demise of rivals.con, er, sorry, I mean, com. But as we're all about Baseball! Baseball! Baseball! On Tuesday! Tuesday! Tuesday! we'll get right to the action instead of razzing our now defunct "partners".

And with two weeks under our belts we have the usual mish-mash of hot starts, cold starts and then somewhere below that there's the Oakland A's. It begs all sorts of questions. Can the Twins keep it up for another two weeks? Are the Mariners for real? Who stole the Oakland A's wheaties?

Well, we may not find the answers to all those questions, but we can review the evidence. First, let's take a look at the American League. I've ranked the teams based on runs scored per game and runs allowed per game. Then I've cunningly divided the former by the latter to get an idea of just how much each team is outscoring it's opponents.

Except the A's, who are being scored on more than Joey Tribbiani's sister. But before we digress further, here's the table for games through April 15:

Note: RS=Runs Scored, RA=Runs Allowed.

TEAM	Hitting Rank	Pitching Rank	Total Rank	RS/RA	RS/G	RA/G	W	L
Boston	8	1	1	2.11	4.75	2.25	8	4
Minnesota	1	7	2	1.58	6.91	4.36	9	2
NY Yankees	2	4	3	1.54	6.42	4.17	8	4
Seattle	7	2	4	1.48	5.17	3.50	9	3
Toronto	3	5	5	1.36	5.77	4.23	9	4
Anaheim	6	3	6	1.29	5.25	4.08	6	6
White Sox	5	11	7	.91	5.55	6.09	4	7
Cleveland	9	8	8	.89	4.64	5.18	5	6
Texas	3	13	9	.89	5.77	6.46	7	6
Kansas City	11	10	10	.74	4.17	5.67	3	9
Detroit	10	14	11	.65	4.27	6.55	4	7
Tampa Bay	13	9	12	.64	3.58	5.58	4	8
Baltimore	14	6	13	.63	2.67	4.25	5	7
Oakland	12	12	14	.58	3.67	6.33	2	10

Of course, the A's may be the worst performing team overall, but they bow to Detroit and Texas when it comes to giving up runs. However, combine that twelfth best pitching with the twelfth best offensive production, behind only Tampa Bay and Baltimore, and you have a whole lotta shakin' goin' on in the right side bay area. Shaking of pundits' heads, that is. How can this vaunted team that captured the AL West last year and was supposed to improve with age be so horrible so early?

Oh well, nobody thought the Twins would be romping in the Central division either, but there they are with the best run scoring and seventh best pitching to combine for the second best run ratio. Flip the hitting and pitching around and you have the Red Sox, who have the best pitching with a mere 2.25 runs allowed per game, combined with average offense (eighth in the league) for the top spot in run ratio. Other teams impressing early are the Yankees (second in runs scored, fourth in pitching), Blue Jays (third and fifth) and Mariners (seventh and second). While everyone expected the Mariners pitching to be good, they have compiled that second best pitching performance mostly on the road so far - nine games out of twelve.

Of the middle of the pack teams, Texas stands out as performing exactly to form - great offense, awful pitching. Kansas City, Detroit, Tampa Bay and Baltimore all stand out for their consistently awful offenses, but Baltimore has managed to compile a .500 record courtesy of surprising relief pitching, taking until this Monday to get a win from a starter. Teams can rarely survive only on a relief corps - ask the Cincinnati Reds.

And speaking of the National league, here's the same numbers for them through April 14.

TEAM	Hitting Rank	Pitching Rank	Total Rank	RS/RA	RS/G	RA/G	W	L
Montreal	7	2	1	1.40	5.09	3.64	7	4
Houston	3	6	2	1.38	5.64	4.09	8	3
Los Angeles	9	5	3	1.20	4.92	4.08	6	6
Chicago Cubs	14	1	4	1.19	4.00	3.36	7	4
San Diego	2	12	5	1.15	6.45	5.64	6	5
Philadelphia	12	3	6	1.11	4.20	3.80	7	3
Florida	6	9	7	1.06	5.10	4.80	3	7
Colorado	1	16	8	1.01	6.55	6.45	5	6
Cincinnati	11	8	9	0.98	4.42	4.50	6	6
San Francisco	4	13	10	0.97	5.55	5.73	7	4
Milwaukee	10	11	11	0.89	4.75	5.33	5	7
Arizona	5	14	12	0.85	5.27	6.18	4	7
NY Mets	15	4	13	0.81	3.18	3.91	4	7
St. Louis	7	15	14	0.81	5.09	6.27	5	6
Pittsburgh	13	10	15	0.81	4.18	5.18	4	7
Atlanta	16	7	16	0.71	3.08	4.33	5	7

It's a shocker to see Montreal on top and the Braves on the bottom of that list, but how many people think that will hold up over a season? And who would have thought the Cubs would have the best pitching in the league to date? If they could only get some offense from someone not named Sammy Sosa they might actually have a shot at respectability.

The Astros aren't a total surprise, as there's no way they could match the combined bad luck and plain terrible performances of last year. Jose Lima's keeping his ERA under 5.00 and Scott Elarton is 2-1 despite a hefty 6.75 ERA. Throw in a healthy Billy Wagner and the 'Stros are looking good. Meanwhile, division rivals St Louis are having somewhat predictable problems. Ankiel, Morris, Hermanson, Kile and Benes are a combined 4-5 with the best ERA among them being Ankiel's 5.40. Not a good sign.

The Braves problems are directly linked to an anemic offense - a team OPS of .628. Not even a rotation of five Greg Madduxes could make a winner out of that (well, maybe they could, but only marginally.) Fortunately for the Braves, the archrival Mets aren't much better. We can only assume that the Phillies and Expos will wake up in mid-May and, much like Wile E. Coyote, realize they are thirty feet over the edge of the canyon. Plummeting to reality should occur soon after.

To be honest, the spread among the NL isn't anywhere near that in the AL at this point. The NL West is a case in point. None of the teams there are romping away with anything. The Dodgers have performed better overall but trail the Giants who have once again made the most of their opportunities. Still, it's tight.

As of the time I ran the numbers only one team had won only three games and only two teams had lost as few as three. All in all, no major upsets yet.

So there's the first two weeks in summary. Every division features possible upsets from last year, which is the way I like them.

about the author

Now you know how Dave Paisley likes them, why not send him some at drdjp@strikethree.com?

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