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MLB week in review 4/1-4/7
Our first official full week of baseball is in the books, and with teams now having played 8–10 games, we are roughly 5.5% of the way through the 162 game slate. The season may be young, but it has not sold us short of any excitement. From a no-hitter to some unlikely comebacks, here’s what we saw, or what you may have missed this week.
- Ronel Blanco no-hits the Blue Jays in Houston
Our top performer of the week is none other than Ronel Blanco, who began the week with a no-hitter of the Blue Jays, and ended the week with another gem on Sunday night baseball against the rival Rangers. Blanco wouldn’t have really been anyone’s pick to throw the first no-no of 2024. At 30 years old, this was only Blanco’s 8th big league start. He has spent what probably has felt like a lifetime in the Astros system, making his pro debut in rookie ball back in 2016 and hitting the big stage for the first time in 2022 for a quick cup of coffee before he delivered 52 innings for Houston’s staff in 2023. Blanco was sub-par for the Astros in 2023 with a 4.50 ERA, 5.99 FIP, and -0.4 fWAR, and split time in AAA. With the injury-riddled pitching staff entering 2024 (Justin Verlander, Luis Garcia, Lance McCullers Jr, Jose Urquidy), Blanco was able to break camp as the 5th starter and give the big leagues another go. He had an impressive spring with 15.2 scoreless innings and has brought that scoreless streak into the MLB season. He faced a Toronto Blue Jays lineup that has struggled, but doesn’t come without any challenges. He only allowed 2 baserunners, both being walks to George Springer, he struck out 7, and only allowed 4 hard hit balls (any batted ball with an EV>95+mph). He induced a 60% ground ball rate, so everything checked out with this performance — he missed bats, limited barrels, and kept the ball on the ground. The arsenal was working to perfection for Blanco. His stuff isn’t eye-popping. He tops out at 95 with his fastball and doesn’t have any freaky breaking stuff. But he threw a changeup, slider, and fastball, all of which had between a 30–35% usage rate, so guessing what was coming wasn’t in the cards for Blue Jays hitters. He was able to get the changeup and slider over for strikes and generate whiffs as the changeup had a CSW% of 41.6 and the slider a 32.4. The fastball didn’t quite generate the same success, but he was able to play it off of the changeup and slider well.
Blanco was able to ride the momentum into Arlington under the lights of Sunday night baseball. As a matter of fact, he rode his no-hit streak into the 6th inning against the best lineup in the league in the Texas Rangers. His 14.2 inning streak of no-hit ball ended on a single up the middle off the bat of Adolis Garcia with 2 outs in the 6th. His final line in this one was 6 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 4 BB, 4 K. The approach was a lot different as his fastball usage was up at 50% and his slider usage dropped to 17% despite the success he had in his first start. The fastball looked a lot better as he generated more called strikes and whiffs, while the changeup remained his best pitch. Not as many ground balls in this one, but he also only gave up 3 hard hit balls, so something to keep an eye on. It’s no doubt that if he keeps up any type of success close to what he’s seeing now, the Astros are going to have a good problem on their hands when the rest of their staff gets healthy.
- The Guardians and Pirates stay hot
I’ve mentioned the Pirates a few times recently already, but I haven’t given the Guardians the credit they’re due yet. The vibes in Cleveland aren’t great in as ace Shane Bieber just went down with Tommy John, but the product on the field has been refreshing after a lackluster 2023. At 7–2, they lead the AL Central after going 4–1 this week, winning 2 of 3 in Seattle and winning the only 2 games they were able to play in Minnesota this weekend. As a team that has struggled to score in high volume over the last couple of years, they currently sit at 5th place in runs scored. The production has been led by none other than the rookie Brayan Rocchio who had an .813 OPS and 143 wRC+ over 19 PAs this week. The pitching has been as advertised as well as their staff is 2nd in all of baseball with a team ERA of 2.28 and a 2.99 FIP. It’s still to be seen how they respond after losing Shane Bieber, but they can still count on a solid 1–2–3 of Tanner Bibee, Logan Allen, and Triston McKenzie.
The Pirates are still atop the NL Central at 8–2 and tied with the Yankees for the best record in baseball after they just took 2 of 3 from both the Nationals and the Orioles. Jared Jones had another solid outing in his 2nd big league start in which he dueled fellow young, right-handed flamethrower Grayson Rodriguez of the Orioles. Although they would lose that one, he would manage a line of 6 IP, 2 ER, 6 H, 0 BB, 7 K. His development this year has already been a lot of fun to watch. Connor Joe and Michael A. Taylor both led the charge offensively, both with an OPS north of .900 while ONeil Cruz smacked 2 more HRs. They ended the week on quite the high note as they mounted a come from behind win against Baltimore’s Yennier Cano in the 9th inning of Sunday’s game. Ke’Bryan Hayes and Jack Suwinski both got the party started with base hits, Connor Joe walked, and Edward Olivares would hit one up the middle that Gunnar Henderson made a great play on but delivered a bad throw to 1st base that would have ended the game. The Buccos will get the Tigers before they head to Philly for the weekend, so staying hot won’t necessarily be an easy task.
- The Royals are looking like an early candidate for fun team of the year
10 games into the season, the Royals are 6–4 and in 3rd place in the AL Central, imagine that. They managed to go 5–2 this week with a 4-game sweep of the White Sox at home while mustering up a win in Baltimore against the Orioles. Bobby Witt Jr is obviously going to be what makes this team go all year, but some other names have emerged early for Kansas City. MJ Melendez and Slavador Perez both had an OPS north of 1.000 this week while Maikel Garcia had a 147 wRC+. Melendez and Garcia were both players primed for a breakout this year, and they’ve shown they are ready to answer the call early on. The offense currently sits in the top half of the league in multiple offensive categories and is 2nd in HRs with 14, only behind the Dodgers at 15. Believe it or not, the pitching staff has been great as well as they are currently 3rd in the league in team ERA at 2.53 and 4th in WHIP at 1.07. Brady Singer and Seth Lugo have both produced 2 great starts, both having only given up 1 ER over 12+ innings, while Cole Ragans has an ERA of 1.46 and Michael Wacha a 2.25. By no means am I saying this is all of a sudden a playoff team, but don’t be surprised if they stick around in the central for the first few months of the season.
- The injury bug bites the league in a big way
While there is a lot of fun going on around the league, the Tommy John epidemic only continues to get worse as 2 more pitchers fall victim while 1 more looks like he is well on his way. I already mentioned Shane Bieber but Jonathan Loaisaga, reliever for the Yankees, also went down this week. The biggest blow of them all is Spencer Strider. Although not confirmed that he needs the surgery, all signs are pointing towards that as he had a significant velocity drop in his most previous start before it came out that he was feeling discomfort in his elbow. X-rays would eventually show that he has damage to his UCL. All of this has only caused fans to ask, how much is too much and is the pitch clock behind all of this? I’ll save my thoughts on the matter for another time, but there’s definitely a conversation to be had and something definitely needs to change.
Staying on the injury front but on the other side of the ball, it looks like Luis Robert Jr is going to miss significant time with a hip flexor strain. After a true breakout season in 2023, I was ready for Luis to make a real run at AL MVP but instead it looks like the injury bug has hit him once again. This is pretty bad news for the Southsiders as he is just about the only redeemable quality on this team right now. Before going down, he already had 2 HRs and was slugging .500. The hope right now is probably getting him back before the all-star break.
Top performers of the week:
- Spencer Steer: 26 PA, 3 HR, 9 RBI, .409/.500/.955, 1.455 OPS
- Marcell Ozuna: 22 PA, 3 HR, 7 RBI, .429/.455/.953, 1.407 OPS
- Tyler O’Neill: 24 PA, 3 HR, 3 RBI, .333/.500/.833, 1.333 OPS
- Ronel Blanco: 15 IP, 0 ER, 0.47 WHIP, .022 BAA
- Tanner Houck: 12 IP, 0 ER, 0.75 WHIP, 33.3 K-BB%
- Shota Imanaga: 10 IP, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0.40 WHIP, 34.3 K%