The AL East: Early Shifts Spark Potential Change

      Three days into the 2011 MLB season and the AL East is out of order. The Orioles and Blue Jays are 2-0, the preseason AL East favorite Red Sox and the Rays are 0-2 and the Yankees sit in their usual first place position also at 2-0. Now the Yankees 2-0 start does not and should not surprise anybody. The Yankees take care of business at home, and in a 3 game home series against a decent Detroit team I guarantee you they will take two out of three games. That is what the Yankees do. They win series' and they take care of business against weaker teams. That is almost always the difference when the Yankees win the AL East by 4 games over the Red Sox.
      But besides the Yankees, this is the bizarro AL East. Did the Red Sox, a team that acquired the two biggest free agents in the offseason and is the favorite in the AL, just get dismantled by Texas? How did the Orioles, a team who hasn't had pitching since the 1990's, hold the Rays to one run over their first two games? How did the Rays just get silenced by the Orioles? And the Blue Jays just handled the Twins in their first two games and the Twins are a playoff team. Is this a preview of the season to come in the AL East?

         Let's start with the Red Sox. Two consecutive miserable pitching performances. They were hammered last night by the Rangers 12-5 with John Lackey giving up nine earned runs. And I was high on John Lackey, but I guess he isn't worth the money. So that is two straight poor outings by Red Sox starters. We'll see how the season progresses, but John Lackey has too many bad innings for him to be consistent. Josh Beckett has a similar problem, he gives up way too many home runs. That leaves the Red Sox with most likely two consistent and very good pitchers in Clay Bucholtz and Jon Lester. And let's look at there potential problems. Clay had the lowest BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) which means he had luck on his side because when the ball was put in play, the Red Sox were in a position to field it. Now this could continue and he could still have a stellar season like last year. But this could also mean that Bucholtz's ERA goes from 2.5ish to 3.4ish which is nearly a whole run. Now we look at Jon Lester. He gave up three home runs and did not strike out a batter on Opening Day. His stuff and his location just did not look as sharp, but hopefully this gets worked out. This leaves five question marks in the Red Sox rotation if we include Daisuke Matsuzaka and we have left out the bullpen. Daniel Bard struggled big time against Texas, who granted has an exceptional lineup but nonetheless, Bard was atrocious. We also have not seen the adventure that is Jonathan Papelbon and when we do see him, if he walks two guys, loads the bases, lets a three run lead squander to one and he only has one out because he is only throwing fastballs, god this could be a long season. The Red Sox have issues at pitching but luckily they don't seem to have many problems in their lineup. They need to win tonight against Texas to avoid an 0-3 start. I may be a little bit too negative, but I think this Red Sox team looks like the Detroit Tigers of a few years ago. They had a big offseason after a couple successful seasons and they were favorites to win the World Series. But they get off to a horrific start and they could not recover. They too had problems pitching. This is an early must win game for the Red Sox because they need to get on the right track, get their pitching in order and prove that they can play with the best of the AL.

     Another early surprise has been the Toronto Blue Jays, who have defeated the Minnesota Twins easily in their first two games. Two pieces of good news have occurred for the Blue Jays already. One is that Jose Bautista got off to a good start by homering on Opening Day. I don't think that this guy was a fluke last season. He is a major threat at the plate and he can hit for power to all areas of the field. So the Blue Jays lineup looks solid. The other good news was the performances of young pitchers Ricky Romero and Kyle Drabek. The Blue Jays rotation is full of young studs and it is only a matter of time before they burst out. Romero had a semi-breakout season last year, but he looks poised to have an even better season this year. Kyle Drabek is another young stud. He only allowed one run in his work yesterday as the Blue Jays cruised to a 6-1 victory. Along with Brett Cecil, Jesse Litsch and the injured Brandon Morrow, the Blue Jays have a young and pretty deep rotation. If the Blue Jays young rotation holds up and Bautista continues his power surge, don't be surprised to see the Blue Jays fight for a wild-card berth in September.
    
     Now, the other major surprise was the Baltimore Orioles impressive domination of the Tampa Bay Rays. We're looking at one team who's future is very bright in the Orioles and one team who was completely depleted in the offseason and whose future is heading in the other direction. The difference I see in Baltimore is their attitude. Buck Showalter has instilled a winning attitude into the Orioles and they are playing with swagger similar to the New York Jets. Showalter was calling out the Red Sox and the Yankees like Rex Ryan called out the New England Patriots and it brought the Jets success. The Orioles upgraded their lineup with the additions of Mark Reynolds, Vlad Guerrero and Derek Lee but their pitching remained in question. But Jeremy Guthrie threw eight shut out innings and Chad Tillman carried a no-hitter into the 7th inning last night. If their pitchers can have quality outings and keep the Orioles in games, their hitting should be enough for them to win games. This Orioles team looks awfully like the Padres last year. The Padres did not have a great offense, but they're pitching staff emerged as one and fueled by a lights out bullpen, the Padres nearly won the NL West. The Orioles are going to have a tougher time competing in the AL East because there are just too many good teams and I still want to see if they are playing like this in May and June. But if they keep this up, the Orioles could be a force to reckoned with this year and in the next few years.
     Everything that has been going good for the Orioles has not been happening for the Rays. The Rays have been one of the best teams in baseball the past three seasons, but we are starting to see a rapid decline. They lost practically their entire bullpen, their number two starter and a power hitting first basemen and in return they got two aging stars who can barely run. Last year I was surprised how the Rays managed to win the AL East even their offense was stunningly silent for a good part of the season. Now they lose pitching and offense and it seems like its getting worse. Evan Longoria is not quite the super-star caliber we thought he was yet and it doesn't seem like B.J. Upton, Ben Zobrist and the rest of the Rays supporting cast will produce enough the contend in the AL East. The Rays pitching has not been the problem this early in the season, but I don't like Tampa's offense at all. With the emergence of the Orioles and Blue Jays, the Rays could possibly finish a surprising fifth, something we haven't seen since they were the Devil Rays.

The O's are flying high early in 2011.