Counting the suspended game with the 'Stros as half a game, we stand at 40.5 games played heading into tonight's match with the BaltoBirds--exactly one-quarter of the season. Here's quick summary of our progress to date.
Team record is 12-28. That's exactly a .300 winning percentage. That's a pace for 49 wins on the season. By comparison, our "Pythagorean" W/L (based on our 210 runs scored and 261 runs allowed) is 16-24, which is a .400 winning percentage. That's a little better, but even that only adds up to 64 wins over the season. My pre-season prediction of 70-75 wins looks pretty far away from here, doesn't it?
Offense? Monster tear. They've smacked 298 hits (2nd in NL), including 75 doubles (6th), 11 triples (2nd), and 47 HR (4th). The team's 636 total bases leads the NL, as does its 0.807 team OPS. We're third in runs scored (210), walks (179), and OBP (361), and second in SLG (441). I know we keep saying that the offense is not the problem, but look--the offense is NOT. THE. PROBLEM.
Pitching? Yeah, not so great. Team ERA is a dismal 5.79, and we're last in the NL in giving up hits, runs, earned runs, and walks. We're only 15th in strikeouts, though! Cross your fingers for the kids, since the rotation stank was mostly concentrated in Olsen and Cabrera (with WHIPs around 1.9 and 2.0, respectively).
Defense? Ugh! Who would have thought defense would be a problem? We're first in errors, last in fielding percentage, and have 28 unearned runs (that's more than half a run per game that we're handing the other team for free--lots of ties getting broken the wrong way). Team UZR/150 is worst in MLB at -9.5 runs--Zimmy can't catch them all!
What will we see for the rest of the season? With our torrid offense, the pitching doesn't have to improve much to get us in the win column more often, but it does have to improve--like I said, cross your fingers for the kids. A little more focus and some infield practice might keeps us close or ahead in quite a few games that we're barely losing now (or at least, are tying before the bullpen detonates in extras). I think this team is still capable of 70 or even 75 wins this season with some good luck and small improvements--we'll know by the AS break if we're on the path to 100 losses again.