On July 23rd, the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals kicked off what will surely be the weirdest season in Major League Baseball history. We’ve now made it August 12th, with the Atlanta Braves having completed 19 games while the St. Louis Cardinals have played in just five.
There are always odd stats from small samples in the early part of the season, but in this 60-game schedule, a very hot or cold start becomes vastly more important. It seems unlikely any of these trends could last the full season, but you never know given the unique circumstances of this year. Let’s look at some of the most interesting small sample stats from both the Baltimore Orioles and the rest of the league.
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ORIOLES
Pedro Severino and Chance Sisco have provided incredible production at catcher: Catcher is perhaps the position Orioles are the least worried about for the future, thanks to #1 overall pick Adley Rutschman. The former Oregon State catcher is in the top ten of every prospect list you can find and MLB.com expects him to be called up next season. While Rutschman is expected to be the future, the catcher position of the present has been crushing the ball. Severino has provided a .946 OPS in 50 PA while Sisco has an even better 1.189 OPS in 24 PA. Sisco is one of just four players in MLB with an OBP above .500 in at least 20 PA in this young and bizarre season. According to fWAR, Severino and Sisco have been two of the ten best catchers in baseball. As far as positions where the Orioles needed to see development at the major league level this season, catcher had to rank pretty low on the list. However, I think they’ll also happily take both of their catchers delivering excellent production to give them a winning record entering Wednesday’s night game against the Phillies.
Tommy Milone has the lowest ERA and highest K/9 of his career: After a pretty solid 2015 where Milone had a 3.92 ERA, he had four straight seasons of being a below-average pitcher, with a dreadful 5.67 ERA. When he was acquired by the Orioles, it was hard to see an outcome where he’d be anything more than an innings eater, but he’s been more than that. His 3.21 ERA, 2.53 FIP and 10.3 K/9 are all the best of his career, with his 1.143 WHIP the second-best mark of his career. After Milone’s Opening Day start that only lasted three innings, it seemed like he’d be another veteran pitcher acquired by the Orioles who couldn’t do much of anything, but in his next two starts, he combined for 11 innings of one earned run, good for an ERA of 0.82. What makes Milone’s early success so notable is his fastball just isn’t very fast. Out of everyone to throw at least 100 pitches this year, Milone’s average fastball velocity of 86.3 is tied for the third-slowest in the majors.
The Orioles pitching staff isn’t 30th in HR/9: It felt like last season, the Orioles set some sort of new record for homers allowed in every game they played, but this season, the homers have been somewhat reigned in. While allowing three homers to the Phillies on Tuesday night didn’t help, their HR/9 of 1.32 ranks 19th in the league and is a better figure than the New York Yankees. Part of this has come from the Orioles avoiding home run barrages: they are yet to allow four or more homers in a game, something that happened 24 times in 2019.
THE REST OF THE LEAGUE
There’s a Jacoby Jones who plays baseball and he leads the league in OPS: No, the former Baltimore Ravens receiver and returner isn’t becoming a two-sport star. An entirely different person named Jacoby Jones has spent 2020 pounding the ball for the Detroit Tigers. Jones has nine extra-base hits in 14 games as of Wednesday morning, giving him a 1.113 OPS. In 286 games in Detroit before this year, he had a .645 OPS, making his 2020 OPS almost double his career figure entering this season. A breakout start is always entertaining, but it’s especially fun when he has the same name as a Ravens Super Bowl hero.
Christian Yelich has the worst OPS of his career: After finishing first and second in MVP voting the last two seasons, Christian Yelich’s 2020 has gone poorly. After an OPS of exactly 1.100 last year, that figure has fallen to .736 this season. Yelich’s home/road performance is also quite notable, with a 1.021 OPS at Miller Park and a .482 OPS away from Wisconsin.
There are three people batting .400, including Charlie Blackmon who is batting .500: One of the main talking points once we learned that there would be a 60-game schedule is the pursuit of a .400 season. While it seems just about impossible to accomplish in a normal 162-game season, it becomes much more possible in a shortened season. DJ LeMahieu is batting .400 on the dot, while Donovan Solano of the San Francisco Giants sits at .458. The real story, of course, is Charlie Blackmon’s .500 batting average. What makes Blackmon’s scorching start so impressive is he needed a couple of games to get going, as seen by a .188 average after his first four games. Since then, he’s had a jaw-dropping .596/.614/.885 slash line.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).