A Look Through the Week: 5/20/13

A Look into the Week- 5/20/13

Hey guys,

Let’s look at the week ahead in the world of baseball.

The Rangers just put 2^nd baseman Ian Kinsler on the 15-Day DL due to bruised ribs. He has been sitting out for the past few days, and has just been added to the list. Kinsler has been on track to have one of the best years of his 8-year career, projecting to have 44 doubles, 28 homers, and 80 RBI’s. As of now, his batting average is at .302 and has a WAR of 1.9 (which is pretty damn good for the start of the year. His 2012 WAR was 2.1). Though the Rangers will lose Kinsler’s great offense and defensive capabilities, they will be calling up their top prospect, Jurickson Profar. After struggling in the beginning of the season, Profar is batting .279 and hit two homers this past Saturday. Nonetheless, this injury won’t devastate the Rangers, and probably won’t lose their spot in 1^st place.

Mark Ellis for the Dodgers has returned after missing 19 games with a right quadriceps strain. Catcher Tim Federowitz has been optioned to triple A to make room on the roster. The 14 year veteran (including his injury season in ’04) Ellis is your stereotypical second baseman, having a career .266 batting average and a 31.3 career WAR. Even with being out 19 games, Ellis has torn it up at the plate, hitting .342 in 20 games. It’ll be interesting to see how his level of play will affect the Dodgers, who moved into last place in the NL West with a record of 17-24. Other injuries the Dodgers have right now are SP Ted Lilly, OF Jerry Hairston Jr., and SP Josh Beckett. Zack Greinke has just returned recently, so hopefully he helps out the expensive Dodgers as well.

Matt Moore for the Tampa Rays is the first person to go 8-0 this season. He right now has a 2.29 ERA, and the Rays have won their ninth game in 11 tries. A cool stat? He’s the youngest pitcher to start 8-0 since Babe Ruth in 1917. Here’s why I have this in the look through the week. Although that may be a cool stat and Moore might be a Cy Young contender as of now, there have been hypes for the Rays to take advantage of first place in the East. Don’t listen to ESPN. With David Price having an ERA higher than 5.00, and the way the crutched Yankees and the hard hitting Red Sox are playing, I doubt they’ll pull it out. As of now the Rays are 4 games back of the Yanks. I had the Red Sox as my preseason favorites and I continue to have them there, but we’ll see what happens.

Speaking of AL East teams, the Orioles are still a pretty good team despite being 4 games out. They assigned pitcher Jair Jurrjens to a minor league deal, and he’s been doing quite well in Triple-A. He could be a major factor to their rotation. He was doing pretty well in Atlanta, but has been struggling late and hasn’t really recovered from a groin issue. Nevertheless, we might see Jair Jurrjens make major starts for Baltimore.

The Braves are slowly falling. After having an incredible start, Justin Upton is hitting homers but not having the best batting average, B.J. Upton sucks, and their starting pitching has not been as good. However, their main problem is their bullpen. Now remember: Craig Kimbrel is potentially the best reliever in the game right now. The only people that might be better are Mo Rivera and Koji Uehara (Who’s Koji Uehara you might ask? Don’t worry, I’ll have an article on him soon). I personally thought he deserved the Cy Young last year because he had better stats than Eric Gagne’s 2003 season, the last reliever to win a Cy Young, and Dickey was good but not incredible. But even with Kimbrel, they don’t have much. Jordan Walden and Eric O’Flaherty have landed on the DL, and Jonny Venters received Tommy John surgery last Thursday. Watch out for the Nationals too; this might just be the time where they begin to take control of the NL East.

The Cubs will activate Matt Garza Tuesday for his first start this year. Garza is a sub 4 ERA pitcher that helped the Rays get to a world series, but injuries have cost him much of his playing time. With the Cubs starting rotation actually being really good right now (Samarzdjia, Jaackson, Wood, Feldman, Villanueva, and Scott Baker but he’s on the DL) it’ll be interesting to see where they can fit in Garza. The Cubs may be second to last in the Central, but their starting pitching is actually one of the best.

Johnny Cueto for the Reds will return at the end of this week presumably. Cueto last year went 19-9 with a 2.78 ERA, and finished 6^th in the Cy Young voting. No he has a sub 2.50 ERA with a win. He can be a HUGE help in getting the Reds back into first place, though they have to get through the Cardinals.

Also, watch out for the D-Backs. They’re in first place right now, led by Paul Goldschmidt and Patrick Corbin. Goldschmidt is one of my favorites to watch, and one of my preseason picks. He kind of reminds me of Richie Sexson. Watch for that duo to be a scary threat in the West.

That’s all I have for this week, but more updates will be coming. Thanks for reading, and make sure to check out my article tomorrow about WAR: the sabremetric that can change the future of the game.

-Evan Boyd

“There are only two seasons- winter and baseball” – Bill Veeck