League Updates

Terrific or Terrible?

The 2020 MLB season has begun.

As I have contemplated this reality I have found myself torn between two polarities – it is both terrific and terrible. In the midst of a worldwide pandemic people are playing baseball games for cardboard cutouts who stare languidly while stadium speakers amplify mimetic applause.

Etymologically speaking, terrible and terrific are derivatives of the same Latin root, terrere. Yet through the process of melioration, terrific became associated with positive experiences – an antonym of its nearly identical twin, terrible (other terms have undergone similar transitions, such sick, bad, and dope).

Terrific and terrible. I can think of no better way to describe what is unfolding in front of me and within me. It is a tension that I fear we will live with for the next several months, a tension whose effects may well last beyond this season and whose memory will last forever.

Terrific: Opening Day 2020 happening even though it seemed impossible to do just a few months ago.

Terrible: Juan Soto, star of the defending World Champion Washington Nationals and cornerstone of the Peshastin Pears franchise, testing positive for COVID-19 moments before making his 2020 debut.

Terrific: Heralded prospects named Luis Robert, Dustin May and Cavan Biggio making headlines with their amazing first games of 2020.

Terrible: Eduardo Rodriguez, a 27-year old 19-game winning SP on the Red Sox is sidelined with complications related to his heart due to COVID.

There are many more instances we can recount that would further demonstrate the grappling match ensuing between terrible and terrific in just the first days of this season.

Some have described the MLB season (and the other professional sports who have found ways to play during the pandemic) as a distraction to help relieve the stress so palpably experienced in lives that have been utterly disrupted this year. In this way it is terrific, and as I switched between games yesterday for several hours I, too, experienced the terrific nature of this distraction. It did allow me moments of joy and feelings of normalcy during what has been assuredly the most unusual experience of my life.

But the closer I looked, the more I listened, and the deeper I waded into the complexities of what an MLB season during a pandemic means, the more terrified I felt. I don’t want anyone to lose their life because people believe baseball games need to be played. I don’t want players to be forced into choosing a paycheck over protection for themselves and their families. These scenarios are not just hypothetical situations for which plans need to be developed, they are realities unfolding before our very eyes.

The pendulum of the 2020 season will continue to swing between terrific and terrible. When it stops, my hope and prayer is that terrific is the fulcrum. 

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I saw someone post yesterday that this season every game is worth 2.7 games in a normal 162 game season. Because there are so few games, every game, every AB, every pitch seems to carry more weight this year. It’s even making people like Mike Matheny – he being historically opposed to sabermetrics – manage the first game of the season like he has never done before. So the stats you see below certainly tell more of a story than they would, say, in a 162-game season. But they are also only one game (well, 2 games for the Pears because they are in the NL West), so take them lightly.

Since it has only been one game for each team, and because our new team stats page lets you see your team’s individual contributors, I am going to just list one terrific and one terrible performance from the day:

Pittsburgh Alleghenys 1 0 .962 12.3 2.5
Cottage Cheese 1 0 .918 4.7 1.4
Canberra Kangaroos 1 0 .809 0.2 2.1 1.0
Flint Hill Tornadoes 0 1 .444 0.5 2.6 2.9
Peshastin Pears 0 1 .357 0.6 1.4 1.9
Old Detroit Wolverines 0 1 .235 0.7 2.3 4.2
Bellingham Cascades 0 1 .191 0.8 4.1 8.3
Kaline Drive 0 1 .141 0.8 3.8 9.3
Haviland Dragons 0 1 .098 0.9 5.4 16.5
Portland Rosebuds 0 1 .067 0.9 3.0 11.2
D.C. Balk 0 1 .063 0.9 1.4 5.3

Pittsburgh (W, 12-3); Terrific – Max Muncy, 2 2B and 2 HR in his first two games. Terrible – 0-4 with a K.

Cottage (W, 5-1); Terrific – Chris Paddack, who pitched 6 innings and gave up 0 runs. Terrible – Yandy Diaz, 0-4 with a K. 

Canberra (W, 2-1); Terrific – Austin Nola who was 1-3 with a 2B. Terrible – Eduardo Escobar who was 0-4 with 2 Ks.

Flint Hill (L, 3-3); Terrific – Max Kepler who went 2-5 with 2 HRs. Terrible – Niko Goodrum who went 0-4 with 3 Ks and a GIDP. Yikes!

Peshastin (L, 1-2); Terrific – Mike Soroka who tossed 6 IP with 0 ER. Terrible – Tommy Edman who went 0-4 with 2 Ks and a caught stealing.

Old Detroit (L, 2-4); Terrific – Eloy Jimenez who went 2-4 with a 2B and a BB. Terrible – A tie between Isan Diaz and Austin Riley who combined for 0-7 with 6 Ks.

Bellingham (L, 4-8); Terrific – Justin Turner who went 3-8 with 2 2Bs. Terrible – Tommy Milone who gave up 4 ERs in 3 IP.

Kaline (L, 4-9); Terrific – Orlando Arcia who went 3 for 3 on the day. Terrible – Ty Buttrey who gave up 2 ERs in less than an IP.

Haviland (L, 5-17) Terrific – Ramon Laureano who went 2-3 with al laser beam HR. Terrible – THE ENTIRE PITCHING STAFF who gave up 10 ER in 4 2/3 IP.

Portland (L, 3-11); Terrific – Jorge Polanco who went 2-5 with a 2B and 2 SB. Terrible – Jose Berrios, on Polanco’s Twins team, who gave up 5 ER in 4 IP.

DC (L, 1-5); Terrific – Tim Anderson who went 2-5. Terrible – Sam Hilliard who went 0-4 with 4 Ks.