"Year of the slugger"

[Balta1701]

Ok, it's a bit early to call it this...but USA Today has a point. For all the pitching dominance last year, this weekend was ridiculous for the lack of pitching.

If 2010 was the Year of the Pitcher, 2011 is shaping up (as some expected) as the Year of the Slugger, at least so far in the American League.

 

The New York Yankees established a franchise record with nine home runs in their first three games by hitting four more Sunday afternoon against the Detroit Tigers. But that pales in comparison to what the Texas Rangers are doing.

 

Yankees' Mark Teixeira watches his third-inning solo home run off Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Max Scherzer. It was Teixeira's third homer in as man games.

 

Preying on Red Sox pitching, the Rangers hit four solo homers Sunday, including the third homer of the season by both Ian Kinsler and Nelson Cruz.

 

It's the first time in major league history that teammates have homered in each of the season's first three games.

 

At Yankee Stadium, Mark Teixeira homered in a third consecutive game and Jorge Posada homered twice for New York. The Yankees' previous record for homers in their first three games was eight by the 1932 and 1981 teams.

 

Don't think that the Rangers and Yankees are the only teams hitting homers. David Ortiz homered in each of the first two games for Boston (it took him 24 games to hit two last year) and Miguel Cabrera homered twice for Detroit on Sunday.

 

The typically light-hitting Los Angeles Angels have hit four of the seven home runs struck Sunday in Kansas City, with second baseman Howie Kendrick smacking two (he, too, has three on the year).

 

And Milwaukee's Rickie Weeks surely must be wondering what he has to do to get into the first few paragraphs of this story. He led off today's game with a home run, making that twice in three games he's pulled off that feat.

 

Of course, he's no Kinsler, who did that in the first two games and, of course, hit another one Sunday.

 

Just wait until the weather warms and the wind starts blowing out.

The AL's OPS last year was .734. For the first 3 games, it was .768.

[Jordan4life_2007]

Good. I didn't enjoy seeing a no-hitter/perfect game every other week. I've always preferred slugfests to pitchers' duels. Game might go a little longer. But they're way more exciting to me.

[Steve9347]

sample-size

[Marty34]

Hafner breaking his bat and flying out to the track made me raise an eyebrow. Is the ball juiced?

[Milkman delivers]

Hafner breaking his bat and flying out to the track made me raise an eyebrow. Is the ball juiced?

 

Or the player.

[LittleHurt05]

From Rosenthal's Twitter:

 

This from STATS: Scoring rate at 4.31 runs per team per game. April not over, but that would be lowest March-April average since 1992. #MLB

 

[Jordan4life_2007]

From Rosenthal's Twitter:

 

This from STATS: Scoring rate at 4.31 runs per team per game. April not over, but that would be lowest March-April average since 1992. #MLB

 

These horrific NL lineups and the A's, Mariners and Rays are certainly not helping matters.

[witesoxfan]

These horrific NL lineups and the A's, Mariners and Rays are certainly not helping matters.

 

The A's, Rays, and Twins will score runs (I know you didn't mention the Twins, but I don't think they've scored more than 5 runs in a game yet). For the Twins and Rays, it's a matter of getting their big bat healthy, and the A's just need to hit a bit more. The A's don't have a great offense, but they have a little bit of 2005 White Sox going on with them in that they have maybe 1 or 2 sorta big bats but there isn't really a big weak spot anywhere in that lineup, relatively speaking. I get that both Suzuki and Pennington are garbage, but Uribe and Podsednik were both pretty bad for that Sox team too but they were good enough that they didn't embarrass themselves at the plate and they posed some sort of threat at the plate.

 

The NL - I have nothing. So many of those teams have like 3-4 really good hitters and then 4-5 absolutely terrible hitters. The Brewers are a perfect example of that - Fielder, Braun, Weeks, McGehee, and Hart are all pretty solid to great hitters, but LuCroy, Betancourt, and Gomez are just terrible.

[Balta1701]

Well, that turned around quick then, huh?