Overreacting in Different Categories to the First Week of Baseball

We’re now 6 days into the MLB regular season.

If you’re a diehard fan, the emotional sustainability of keeping up these highs and lows is not possible for a 162-game regular season marathon.

Take a deep breath and realize that we’re not even 5% done with the year yet.

That being said, overreacting is incredibly entertaining.

Let’s take a look at some of the early season games we saw this weekend and put them into a variety of buckets.

• Bucket 1: “How awesome would THIS be?”
• Bucket  2: “I’ll believe it when I see it. Give it time.”
• Bucket 3: “SELL THE TEAM.”

Because when you’re a fan, every series is life or death when it comes to analysis.

“The San Diego Padres Are Still the Same Fun Team Again.”

We’ve done this for two seasons in a row now – the Padres lost what they had as the plucky small-market team that wore fun colors and went toe-to-toe with the Dodgers, only to have an offseason and free agency of tumult where we think they’ll take a step back.

They make up for it in the aggregate seemingly every single time, and their 4-0 sweep of the Braves was mightily impressive. Fernando Tatis Jr. looks mature and in the MVP form we saw last postseason with a new swing, leading the league in hits and had 3 stolen bases. Jackson Merrill continues to develop as the mature hitter we saw last season, working a long clutch at-bat against Chris Sale. Yes, the lineup is top-heavy, but they found a way to grind out wins with the second-best performance from the bullpen of Wandy Peralta and Robert Suarez and RBIs from the afterthought Yuli Gurriel and Gavin Sheets!

It may just be one series, but the resilience of the Padres after an offseason of question marks makes them an added wrinkle of entertainment if they’re still the Padres we’ve known and loved and if they get this team healthy through the remainder of the season.

VERDICT: Bucket 1

“The Pirates Remain Reprehensible and Are Going to Be the Reason Paul Skenes Demands Out.”

The question facing the Pittsburgh Pirates was whether or not Paul Skenes and his rookie stardom would be enough to propel them enough to change their identity and actually invest in the team, be it a major locked-up extension or adding ANY offensive firepower to that team at all. Skenes is the sure thing, and the Pirates have been ruined previously just by a refusal of investment to which Paul Skenes called it out and said the fans deserve better.

The answer? Skenes, Keller, and Falter all pitched into the 6th inning, each didn’t give up more than 2 runs, and they got walked off 3 times in 4 games to a Marlins team actively trying to lose because the team batted .184 and the bullpen melted down three times. The Pirates usually start out hot and fold later, so Pittsburgh has every right to be as angry as they’ve always been, just through a 1-3 start.

VERDICT: Bucket 3

“The Yankees and Their Torpedo Bats Are an Unstoppable Force, and They Will Cakewalk Through the American League to the World Series Again.”

The Yankees put up 15 homers in 3 games against a Milwaukee Brewers team with a pitching staff that looks injured and lost. The main takeaway should not be that the Yankees are cheating and using these torpedo bats- the bats have been legal,

Judge didn’t even use them in the process of slugging, and other teams around the league (including an 0-11 Francisco Lindor and a lost Matt Wallner) also used them. The only thing that makes it sound like it’s cheating is that they have the word “torpedo,” which makes it sound like a steroid. If it were called a “cotton candy floof batt,” we’d think Jazz Chisholm Jr. was every bit as lanky as he is.

Last season, the Yankees opened the year by sweeping an Astros team, and we gave Juan Soto his pinstripes for life. It’s impressive they put on the offensive smouldering they did, and Judge still looks like the best hitter in the game at .545 with 4 homers, but this Brewers team left Nestor Cortes and Connor Thomas out to die longer than they had to in a ballpark where it flies. The aggregate makeup for the loss of Juan Soto looked solid, and Aaron Judge is healthy and slugging, but we had these conversations in March of last year when we gave them the trophy in Houston.

VERDICT: Bucket 2

“The Twins May Be Passed by the White Sox in the AL Central.”

PHOTO: Denny Medley/Imagn Images

The Chicago White Sox currently have more wins than the Minnesota Twins after following the worst season in baseball history. Wins are wins, Chicago!

For Minnesota, immediately after the potential buyers of the Twins possibly backed out of a deal and invested into a minority stake in the White Sox, they got promptly swept by the identity-less St. Louis Cardinals and just plain looked bad doing it. They had the 27th batting average and hit just two home runs, and the “top three” core of Correa, Buxton, and an injured Royce Lewis went 1-23. Meanwhile, the pitching that was supposed to be their strength gave up 5 homers and had a WHIP that was only better than the Brewers who got teed off on. We saw this last year where the Twins’ good looks were unbeatable, and the bad looks like it couldn’t win a game against the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

Still, while the White Sox are actively trying to rebuild, the Twins are in that same rut they’ve been in, while the remainder of the AL Central is at least actively trying to turn the page. It’s an overreaction because the White Sox will still be worse, but the Twins may be just as miserable.

VERDICT: Bucket 3 (because they actively ARE trying to sell the team)

“The Dodgers Are Going to Set the Record and Wins and Are Bad for Baseball Like We All Said. Plan the Parade.”

Is it inevitable? Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman were both sick and injured for the Tokyo Series, only to promptly each homer and crush the hopes of the Tigers, and 7 different bats already have homers. Five different batters are already hitting above .250, and that’s not even including a slumping derby champion, Teoscar Hernandez, and Max Muncy. Shoei Ohtani hasn’t even begun pitching yet! Is there anything that can save us?

The answer is that the Dodgers may not even care about the wins record. They didn’t win 100 games last year to get to the World Series because they focused on depth. Yes, they’re 5-0, that’s not without chinks in the armor like Roki Sasaki having to leave early in his second start giving up a plethora of walks, Tanner Scott allowing 2 runs, and a rotation that hasn’t looked “unbeatable.”

They’re not bad for baseball because of how unpredictable the postseason is in October, which is seemingly light-years from now. The Los Angeles Dodgers are merely the favorites in that they’ve now mastered better than anyone else the awareness of the long haul and what it takes to cover up the chinks in the armor with depth, and are better-prepared than anyone else to do so.

VERDICT: Bucket 2

PHOTO: Denny Medley/Imagn Images