MLB 2018 regular season thread

There were 13 teams that scored less runs than the A’s in 2017.

EDIT: Steak beat me to it.

 

The two games it immediately brings to mind are Strassberg & Wood. That's pretty impressive. Let's see what happens going forward.

 

Now do the hitting part.

 

I'm not a skeptic. He's by far the best story is what's been an overall interesting start. All the teams were after him- old and new school. I'm fascinated to see how it plays out. I hope he stays healthy.

 

Its just been a frigging incredible week and a half with Ohtani.

 

I'm just waiting for the Angels to have to euthanize Pujols.

Ohtani leads the team with a 1.310 OPS.
Jefry Marte, the other first baseman, is at 1.007. (He's 26.)
Pujols is at .676.

 

As Guy noted, a lot of people who watched the entire game yesterday (I only saw the highlights) compared Ohtani's stuff to Kerry Wood's in his 20-strikeout game.

That's the gold standard of "unhittable" in my lifetime, perfect games included. You could probably throw a couple of late 90s Pedro starts in there as well.

Wood's 20-K game was his fifth MLB start. Interestingly enough, his ERA was 5.89 coming in. He'd been rocked for 7 runs in 1 2/3 innings by the Dodgers two weeks before.

Kerry Wood 1998 Pitching Game Logs | Baseball-Reference.com

Also, that Astros team Wood carved up won 102 games and included Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio and Moises Alou in their primes (along with a pretty good Derek Bell).

 

Steak, that link I posted included a lot of stats about the rate of swing-and-misses. His splitter is essentially unhittable, yes.

 

Most splitters are unhittable. You just gotta not swing at them

 

And that one hit should have been an error. I remember watching that one live. Wood's stuff was absolutely ridiculous.

 

Nailed it.
The verdict is in on Shohei Ohtani's bat and it's not good

 

Also nailed it.