Brewers Sweep Red Sox and Marlins the Early Surprise of MLB
Major League Baseball is starting its second week of the 2014 season. Last week and through the weekend a number of interesting things took place on baseball diamonds around the league.
The Milwaukee Brewers had the weekend’s most impressive results. The Brewers waltzed into Fenway Park to take on the defending World Series Champions and swept the Boston Red Sox including a 4-0 victory on Sunday. Milwaukee outscored Boston 17-8. All of last season, the Red Sox were swept just once and shutout at Fenway just three times during the regular season.
The Seattle Mariners last week won 4 of 6 games on the road and received dominating starts from James Paxton and Felix Hernandez and strong performances at the plate from Dustin Ackley and Justin Smoak.
Robinson Cano is quietly hitting .391 and has been walked intentionally 3 teams already. Cano legged out a double on what should have been a single, showing the veteran still has some speed.
The Arizona Diamondbacks’ Mark Trumbo had his fourth home run in as many games on Sunday helping Arizona defeat the Colorado Rockies 5-3. Arizona has won just 2 of 9 games and currently holds the worst record in the majors.
Trumbo has hit five homers and knocked in 13 runs, but the offense for Arizona has been struggling thus far averaging less than four runs a game.
Speaking of home runs, Giancarlo Stanton hit a monstrous one Friday. Major League Baseball stats estimate that the home run went 484 feet. Last season the longest homer for the year was 486 feet by Evan Gattis on September 8. Miami lost Sunday, but is 5-2 thus far and Stanton is batting .345. Many feared no one would pitch to him with just a weak lineup around him, yet he has not been intentionally walked yet.
Derek Jeter moved into eighth place past Paul Molitor for all time hits in the majors. Jeter has a career average of .312 with 256 home runs.
In six games this season, the New York Yankees have hit just one homer. The homer was hit on Sunday by Brett Gardner in a win over Toronto. Mark Teixeira was placed on the disabled list this weekend, which means Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Beltran, 38 years old and 37 years old respectively will be the power hitters for the Yankees in the short term.
B.J. Upton is batting .120 for the Atlanta Braves and has already struck out 11 times in just 25 appearances at the plate.
Jered Weaver could be causing concern for the Los Angeles Angels management. In his two starts this season, batters have a slugging percentage of .600 and he allowed the Houston Astros four home runs on Sunday.
The four homers were on a 3-1 changeup, a 3-2 slider, a 0-1 fastball and a 0-1 curve. Weaver’s velocity is averaging only 86 mph about what he averaged last season when he threw 86.5.
It is still very early in the season, but the Marlins are already a pleasant surprise winning five of their first 7 games, after losing over 100 last season.
