27 Outs: Miggy flexing, Gattis whiffing and the war on wins
27 Outs is a weekly look around the league at some of the statistics, storylines and anecdotes that caught our eye over the last seven days of baseball.
1. Here's the kind of Opening Week it was for the Tigers: They began it with a 24-inning scoreless streak and ended it by scoring eight times Sunday to increase their league-leading total to 47 runs. It's been a dominating seven days for undefeated Detroit and ...
2. Miguel Cabrera, who finished the week as the AL leader in average, OBP, OPS, hits, RBIs, and runs created. Surgically repaired ankle is fine, thanks for asking.
3. That Cabrera hasn't been the most dominating player of this very early season speaks to how ridiculous Adrian Gonzalez has been. He's been so good, FanGraphs says he's been worth 1.3 wins through his first six games, which puts him on pace for an all-time record 40-WAR. Or, in other words: four times the average Mike Trout season.
4. Speaking of the best player in baseball, it looks like he was ready to body slam Yordano Ventura in this picture. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.
5. Pitchers, however, continue to hold the upper hand on batters. The 8.34 average runs per game through Sunday is the second-lowest to start a season in 23 years.
6. Here's why:
That was Matt Harvey's first regular-season curveball in 593 days.
7. Curveball, fastball, slider, you name it - they all handcuffed Brett Lawrie on Tuesday. The A's third baseman became the first player in 27 years to strike out four times on 12 pitches.
8. No one, though, is struggling like Evan Gattis. The Astros bopper went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts Sunday and is now 0-for-20 to start the season, 0-for-30 dating back to last year, and has 12 punchouts in 21 plate appearances in 2015.
9. One team making pitchers work has been the revamped Red Sox. The top 3 AL hitters in pitches seen:
| RK | PLAYER | TEAM | PA | PIT | P/PA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pablo Sandoval | BOS | 32 | 149 | 4.66 |
| 2 | Dustin Pedroia | BOS | 33 | 129 | 3.91 |
| 3 | Mookie Betts | BOS | 29 | 128 | 4.41 |
10. Alternatively, a look at who's thrown the most 98-mph pitches this season, courtesy of BaseballSavant.com (entering Sunday):
| Rank | Player | TEAM | 98+ MPH | Total P | % of P |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aroldis Chapman | CIN | 31 | 49 | 63.265 % |
| 2 | Nathan Eovaldi | NYY | 14 | 94 | 14.894 % |
| 3 | Kelvin Herrera | KC | 13 | 41 | 31.707 % |
11. The only speed stat the league cares about right now is game time - which was 2 hours, 54 minutes through Saturday, down an average of 11 minutes from 2014.
12. That difference would be even greater if it weren't for the Yankees-Red Sox 19-inning marathon Friday.
BOS-NYY's game lasting 6:49 is longest in rivalry since Aug. 29, 1967 (Yankees won in 20 inn). Clubs played 2 games that yr going 18+ inn
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 11, 2015
13. Can't talk Yankees and not Alex Rodriguez, who hit his 655th career homer with a team-leading .300 average and second-best .967 OPS during his first week of baseball in 19 months. It's been a dream week for A-Rod, writes Wallace Mathews.
14. A-Rod, who also played first base for the first time in 2,436 career starts, has the support of home run king Barry Bonds in his quest for 660. Any excuse for us to show this vintage picture from the 2004 All-Star Game:
15. But let's temper expectations for A-Rod, and everyone else for that matter. It's a long year, as Pedro so eloquently put it:
I am not totally concerned about Sabathia because we're at the beginning of the season. #Yankees
— Pedro Martinez (@45PedroMartinez) April 10, 2015
Speaking of sample size ...
16. The good: Jose Iglesias - 10 hits in 19 at-bats.
17. The bad: Robinson Cano - five strikeouts, no walks, and 3-for-25.
18. The ugly: Mike Napoli - 1-for-19 and a .053/.250/.053 slash line.
19. Royals Manager Ned Yost says Mike Moustakas is going to produce a .270/25/100 season. Only 10 players did that in 2014.
20. That's four more players than rookies Toronto currently has on its roster. One of them is second baseman Devon Travis, who showed impressive awareness during a defensive sequence Thursday. Tap here and watch Travis move to make a play at the top of the screen before returning to cover first and completing the cut-off with an outstanding pick. That's major-league execution from a player who entered the year with no experience above Double-A.
21. Travis' teammate Mark Buehrle made history Friday when he became just the fourth active pitcher with 200 wins. Here's the next closest four:
| Player | TEAM | W | Age |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barry Zito | OAK | 165 | 36 |
| A.J. Burnett | PIT | 155 | 38 |
| Justin Verlander | DET | 152 | 32 |
| John Lackey | STL | 152 | 36 |
22. "The win" has lost support in the stat community in recent years, and with instances like this, one can understand why:
Fernando Rodney faced 8 batters, retired 2, gave up all of a four-run lead, and got the win. What a stupid, useless stat.
— keithlaw (@keithlaw) April 12, 2015
23. What's the opposite of useless? Andrelton Simmons. Somehow, this play resulted in a 6-3 putout.
24. Here's a play Stats Inc. says has never been made in its 28-year history of collecting MLB data: the 2-1 double play.
25. Not to be outdone, Royals outfielder Paulo Orlando did something this week no player has accomplished in at least 115 years - have his first three hits fall for triples.
26. Kris Bryant Update: Everyone's favorite prospect is slugging .750 with two homers in four Triple-A games. Cubs third basemen, meanwhile, are a collective 3-for-17.
27. We end this week's edition with a very cool quote from the very cool #THIS ad campaign MLB is currently running:
"The game's being played better than it ever has in the history of it. These are the good old days."
Amen.