MLB Review of April 2022

First things first, I am not one of those baseball fanatics that sits down in front of 8 TV’s every night and watches all 162 games for all 30 teams. However, I am an avid baseball fan that enjoys throwing on good matchups during my spare time. The brand is called ‘Kickback’ for a reason. Let’s get into this month’s review. 

The season started later than expected and the players are suffering through lack of preparation, especially starting pitchers. Though, within the past few years we have seen organizations develop the ‘opener’ mentality, this year is different. Pitchers have not had the time to progressively stretch their outings out. As a result of a short spring training we are seeing several names on the injured list (IL). I believe organizations are being extra cautious these first few months with their arms to attempt to mitigate long term injuries. Hopefully we see pitchers like Ryan Pressly, Blake Snell, Hyun Jin Ryu, and Jacob deGrom come back from these early season injuries to make an impact when it matters most. If not, I blame Bobby Manfred.

As everyone expected, AL East and NL West are absolute WAGONS. I hate seeing the Sox next to the Orioles in the standings almost as much as the baseball community hates Yankee fans. It would be nice to see them get back up there with the Yanks, Jays, and Rays but to do so they will have to clone Nasty Nate two or three times. The Sox pitching sucks and that’s all there is to it. Blowing saves like Kiradech Aphibarnrat blowing clouds on the course.

Some surprises around the league are the Mets and Miami leading the way in the NL West. As well as the Angels leading the AL West with unexpected power coming from Taylor Ward, dropping 5 bomb-bombs in his first month. Houston, Seattle, and Oakland off to an average start thus far. The only notable thing to happen for the Texas Rangers is that Scottie ‘4 jab’ Scheffler threw out the first pitch last week, other than that, Rangers are off to a tough start.

In the NL Central the Brewers finish the month of April strong with a five game win streak. Though they are in the bottom third of the league in batting average, their pitching is picking them up, as they rank in the top five in ERA, number two in quality starts, and leading the league in strikeouts.

That sums up this month’s baseball review brought to you by Sammy Shanks. If you are asking, “What about the AL Central?”, then go screw. The AL Central is nothing special and the only thing worth mentioning is J Ram hitting the crap out of the ball with seven dingers, twenty-eight RBIs, and a .342 batting average. If you made it this far in the blog, you must be pretty bored or a good buddy of mine, either way let’s see what next month has in store. I would like to see a couple more no hitters!

Highlights around the league

• Miggy Cabrera surpasses 3K hits at his home ballpark
• Clayton ‘Oldman’ Kershaw is somehow still dominating with three wins under his belt and becoming the Dodgers all time strikeout leader
• The baseball community is starting to question the hype of young phenom Bobby Witt Jr.
• Mets throw a combined no hitter, their second in franchise history
• Trevor Bauer has been suspended for two years under MLB’s domestic violence policy
• Opposing pitchers love hitting Mets batters almost as much as Rickie Fowler loves filming commercials