April

[jim]

A month of baseball so we can look around and get a few meaningful trends. So how does a team handle losing a player of Pujols' caliber? Apparently fine, we lead the league in the most important offensive category - runs scored. We get there by getting on base (1st in the NL), and hitting the snot out of the ball (1st in SLG). We get on base the old fashioned way - we hit (.282 BA - first in the league). With that kind of production you certainly don't worry about silly things like stolen bases (blue font - we are tied for 3rd in the league with 20 out of 25 attempts).

With offense like that, who needs pitching? Well doesn't hurt I guess..
- 2.80 ERA is 2nd in the league
- 2.0 BB/9 is the lowest in the league
- K/BB ratio is 3.57 - highest in the league

We can catch the ball too.
- .988 fielding percentage is first in the NL

I'll be honest I don't know/understand/trust alot of the defensive metrics, but my eyes tell me we get to a fair amount of balls as well. As far as running the bases, I think we do that reasonably well to.

It's been a good month, and this team is playing very good and consistent baseball. You know you are never as good as you look when playing good (and never as bad as you look when playing poorly), so I know this won't last forever. But you don't play at this level unless you are a good team. I expect peaks and valleys, and I will be very disappointed if we aren't at the 95+ win level at the end of the year.

[heyzeus]

1.62, 1.30, 1.33

The ERAs of Lohse, Westbrook, and Lynn, respectively.

I think we can score enough runs to keep winning as these three revert from Bob Gibson circa 1968 back to something approaching career norms. But some of the pitching success isn't going to last forever.

[fanforever]

It helps that we played all games (except 1) against the NL Central...so we must keep this in perspective.

The important thing is the players appear to be loose and having fun while doing it.

Furcal has exceeded my Expectations for what was expected of him in the early going

[JL21]

If- huge if- this team can stay healthy, they should be one of the beasts of the NL. Even with injuries, it's hard not to see them making the playoffs.

My only real concern is about their depth. The 25-man roster has great depth. But once you get past the 25-man, there's not much on the farm that can help in 2012. It's an exciting batch coming up but it's just a year away.

[lukethedrifter]

I'm interested in the greater trend that cpebbles brought up recently suggesting that the strike zone has widened leading to what he called a new dead ball era. Anything to that?

[pioneer98]

I don't think all months will be as good as this one. The pitching will come back down to earth...but Holliday is just now starting to break out a bit and Berkman has been out of the lineup as well. They need to get healthy and stay healthy if they are going to be able to absorb some of these guys coming back down to earth. But yes, I agree they are a good team.

[Jmodene]

It helps that we played all games (except 1) against the NL Central...so we must keep this in perspective.

The important thing is the players appear to be loose and having fun while doing it.

Furcal has exceeded my Expectations for what was expected of him in the early going

We may have played most of our games against the NL Central, but at least two of those teams (Milwaukee and Cincinnati) were supposed to be good and one (Pittsburgh) was supposed to be getting better.

The only two really bad teams in the division are the Cubs and Astros - and we're only 3-3 against the Cubs and haven't even yet played the Astros. But we're 4-2 against Milwaukee, 4-2 against Cincinnati, and 3-1 (so far) against the Pirates - so, weirdly enough, we're 11-5 against the "good" teams in the NL Central and 3-3 against the "bad" teams. Plus 1-0 against Miami.

Perhaps what's happening is we're playing to the level of the competition. If we don't do well against Houston and then go out and beat Arizona and Atlanta, we'll know better, I suppose.

[Jocephus]

the SB's are cool to see

[MDCardsFan]

the SB's are cool to see

How many steals with Yadi end the year with!

Always cracks me up to see him steal a base.

[slide_into_first]

The company that sponsors pitcher changes will need a different contract- do they pay per pitching change or a flat fee?