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5 eye-opening stats from the season’s first month
- Updated: May 2, 2016
The eventual American League West-champion Rangers were 7-14 at the end of April last season, which tells you how much we should be paying attention to the standings right now. One player tied for the highest home-run total for the month of April 2015 was Hanley Ramirez, which tells you how much we should be paying attention to individual numbers.
But man, there’s got to be something we can pay attention to, right?
Well, how about a few team- and league-wide trends that have pleasantly caught us off-guard?
1. The Phillies rotation’s fielding independent pitching mark (2.89) Philadelphia’s 15-10 record is eye-opening enough on its own. But it’s largely borne of this.
Fielding independent pitching (FIP) is basically an ERA adjusted for the things a pitcher can control — walks, strikeouts, home runs, hit by pitches. The Fightin’ Phils, surprisingly, ranked third in this metric entering the week, behind only the Mets and Nationals. This has been the chief contributor to the Phillies escaping April of a rebuilding year with a winning record. And while it’s not enough to change the definition of this season from just that — “rebuilding year” — it is enough to make you wonder if perhaps this rebuilding process might be quicker than many of us assumed.
What’s encouraging about the Phillies’ outlook is the upside. Vince Velasquez, who struck out 25 batters in his first 15 innings and was terrific in a win over the Indians on Sunday, and Aaron Nola, who has allowed one run in his past 14 innings, will take their lumps at times, for sure. But they’ve already provided flashes of the future, and the Phillies haven’t even dipped into a prospect pool highlighted by right-handers Mark Appel and Jake Thompson.
Basically, the Phillies aren’t making you squint too hard to see the seeds of a contender at Citizens Bank Park.
2. The White Sox defensive efficiency (.731) We could talk about the pitching that’s carried Chicago to an 18-8 start. Those of us who felt a staff that begins with Chris Sale and Jose Quintana and ends with David Robertson was worthy of more love than it was getting have had that opinion justified (I just don’t know anyone who thought Mat Latos would have a sub-2.00 ERA after five starts).
The improvement of the defense, though, has …
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