The Cycle, Issue 127: Kwan Can Cook
Top performers from the season's first week, a viewer's guide to Week 2, reviews of baseball's debut on Apple TV+ and the Astros City Connect uniforms, and more . . .
In this issue of The Cycle . . .
Did You See That? The top performances of the first week of the 2022 season
On Deck: A viewer’s guide to Week 2
Broadcast News: Thoughts on Apple TV+’s MLB debut
Rooting for Laundry: The Astros launch their City Connect uniforms
Feedback
Closing Credits
Did You See That?
The 2022 Yermín Mercedes award for the hottest hitter to start the season goes to rookie Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan. Kwan reached base 18 times in his first 24 plate appearances across Cleveland’s first five games without striking out or even swinging and missing (both of which he finally did on Wednesday, in the sixth game). Kwan, who singled once and walked twice in his major-league debut last Thursday, reached base six times in the Guardians’ 17–3 shellacking of the Royals on Sunday, going 5-for-5 with a double and a hit-by-pitch, and collected 10 hits and seven walks in those first five games. Kwan took his first career 0-fer on Wednesday, but still drew a walk, and is still hitting .526 with a .655 on-base percentage in 29 plate appearances on the season and for his career.
Another rookie off to a blazing hot start is Cubs import Seiya Suzuki, who also singled once and walked twice in his major-league debut last Thursday. More recently, he hit his first major-league home run on Sunday and hit two more in his next game on Tuesday to briefly pull into a tie for the major-league lead in homers. Suzuki went 1-for-3 with a single and a walk on Wednesday to continue his career-long hitting streak and is slugging and even 1.000 on the season.
Among the other players with three homers in the early going are Anthony Rizzo, Byron Buxton, Guardians José Ramírez and Oscar Mercado, and Nolan Arenado. Arenado is 7-for-16 on the season with three doubles to go with his three homers and is leading the majors with a 1.188 slugging percentage. Ramírez, meanwhile, already has three three-hit games, with two doubles, a triple, and three homers and is leading the majors with 14 RBI.
The leader lists are lousy with Guardians right now (Myles Straw leads in stolen bases and runs, Owen Miller leads in doubles, Kwan is tied for the major-league lead in walks), as they have exploded over their last four games against the Royals and Reds, scoring 44 runs in four games. It will be very interesting to see how that Cleveland lineup, from which very little was expected, fares against the superior pitching of the Giants this weekend and the White Sox next week.
Unimpressed with all of those three-homer players, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit three against the Yankees Wednesday night, mixing in a double for good measure for 11 total bases on the night, one more than a cycle and easily the most in a single game thus far this season. Guerrero is now the MLB home-run leader with four. He also speared a screaming Josh Donaldson liner for the final out of the Blue Jays’ 6–4 win on Wednesday.
The major-league OPS leader, meanwhile, is Ji-Man Choi, who is 9-for-16 on the season with two doubles, two homers, and five walks for a .563/.667/1.063 line and a 1.730 OPS in all of 21 plate appearances. Also off to good starts: sophomore Wander Franco, new Braves first baseman Matt Olson, and unofficial Giants captain Brandon Belt, who arrived on Opening Day wearing an electrical-tape “C” on his jersey, a captain’s hat on his head, and standing in a boat throwing souvenir baseballs into the crowd.
On the other side of the ball, the Padres’ first two starting pitchers of the season, Yu Darvish and Sean Manaea, each went six innings without allowing a hit against the Diamondbacks and were pulled due to pitch count before they could surrender a safety (reliever Tim Hill did the honors immediately in both cases). Manaea’s start was the more impressive of the two, as he completed seven innings allowing only a walk while striking out seven.
Manaea’s 83 game score in his Padres debut was the top game score of the season, tied the next day by Kyle Gibson, who allowed just two hits and struck out 10 in seven innings against Manaea’s old team, until Clayton Kershaw struck out 13 in seven perfect innings against the Twins Wednesday night. Kershaw needed just 80 pitches to accomplish that 90 game score, but he, too, was pulled due to pitch count, the correct decision given his increasing fragility and the arm issues that kept him out of last year’s postseason.
Kershaw’s outing overshadowed Logan Webb besting Manaea’s follow-up effort with eight innings of one-run ball on Wednesday night, but Webb, in turn, overshadowed a solid follow-up from Manaea, who ranks among the best of the two-dozen pitchers to make multiple starts this season. The best pitcher in baseball at this exact moment, however, appears to be the Mets’ accidental Opening Day starter, Tylor Megill, who hasn’t allowed a run or a walk in 10 1/3 innings while allowing just six hits and striking out 11. Megill’s two starts, against the Nationals and Phillies, were almost identical, about five innings, exactly three hits, no runs, and no walks, and about five strikeouts each time out. The Mighty Megill will face Alex Cobb and the Giants in his next turn on Monday.
Speaking of the Giants, perhaps the most significant thing that happened in the season’s first week was that Giants assistant coach Alyssa Nakken became the first woman to appear on the field in uniform during a major-league game when she took over as San Francisco’s first base coach when Antoan Richardson was ejected from Tuesday night’s game (which was its own thing). And since we’re on the subject of women in baseball, manager Rachel Balkovec’s Single-A Tampa Tarpons won on Opening Day and improved to 4-1 on the season with a win over the Dunedin Blue Jays Wednesday night.
On Deck
Note that all pitching matchups are probable and subject to change.
This Weekend
Series to Watch
Cardinals @ Brewers: Expectations are that these will be the top two teams in the National League Central, and this will be their first head-to-head series of the year. Last year, the Brewers won the division by five games over St. Louis, despite the latter’s late surge and the fact that the Cardinals won the season series 11–8, outscoring Milwaukee by 18 runs in those 19 games. This four-game weekend set kicks off with Adam Wainwright and Brandon Woodruff facing off in the Brewers’ home opener, and will conclude with Brewers prospect Aaron Ashby getting a spot start, likely against Dakota Hudson, on Sunday.
Rays @ White Sox: Division winners in 2021, the Rays and White Sox are right back on top to start the 2022 season. There’s not much proper rivalry here, but the quality of the baseball should be top notch, and these are two teams that could very well meet in this year’s postseason, though with both rotations hit hard by injury (Lance Lynn, Lucas Giolito, Shane Baz, Luis Patiño, and Ryan Yarbrough are all on the shelf, not to mention Tyler Glasnow), the pitching matchups aren’t terribly compelling beyond Corey Kluber and Dylan Cease in Friday night’s opener.
Astros @ Mariners: The Astros play three of their first four series against the teams most likely to challenge them in the American League West. They already took two of three in Anaheim from the Angels, whom they will host next week. This weekend, the Mariners get their first shot, though they’ll get a chance to avoid a four-game sweep at the hands of the White Sox on Thursday first. Friday is Seattle’s home opener. Saturday is Justin Verlander’s second start of the season. Mariners rookie Matt Brash gets the ball on Sunday. Robbie Ray’s turn in the Seattle rotation won’t occur during this series.
Braves @ Padres: The Braves and Padres aren’t division rivals, and the Padres aren’t likely to win their division, but I picked both teams to make the playoffs this year. So, while it’s too early to know if either is going to make me look smart or stupid. Friday’s game will be San Diego’s home opener and the Braves’ first road game of the season. Thus far, the defending champions have split four with the Reds and dropped two of three to the Nationals, and in their last two games, they have scored 16 runs and one run, respectively, against Washington. The Padres took three of four from the Diamondbacks to open the season, but just dropped two of three to the Giants. The best pitching matchup of this series is Thursday night’s confrontation between Charlie Morton and Joe Musgrove. The Sunday game (Huascar Ynoa vs. Yu Darvish) is on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.
Thursday, April 14
Eight of Thursday’s 11 games start a new weekend series, with only the Blue Jays–Yankees, Mariners–White Sox, and A’s-Rays series carrying over from earlier in the week. Thursday brings Shohei Ohtani’s second start of the season (against Dane Dunning and the Rangers at 8:05 pm ET). However, there are two games that are likely to be more compelling overall:
Adam Wainwright vs. Brandon Woodruff, Cardinals @ Brewers, 5:14 pm ET
Charlie Morton vs. Joe Musgrove, Braves @ Padres, 8:10 pm ET
Wainwright, Morton, and Musgrove all pitched well on Opening Day, with the veterans Wainwright (40) and Morton (38) earning the win, and Wainwright turning in the best outing of the three (6 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K against the Pirates). Woodruff, who started the second game of the Brewers’ season, was roughed up by the Cubs for seven runs (two of which scored after he left the game) in just 3 2/3 innings. Woodruff walked three and hit two batters in that outing, which took place on a 44-degree day in Chicago. It’s not likely to be much warmer in Milwaukee on Thursday, but one still has to expect better results from the pitcher who finished fifth in last year’s NL Cy Young award voting.
Friday, April 15
Pitching Matchup of the Day
Marcus Stroman vs. Germán Márquez, Cubs @ Rockies, 8:40 pm ET
Stroman was solid in his Cubs debut, allowing just one run in five innings. Márquez, meanwhile, was excellent in his season debut, needing just 74 pitches to hold the Dodgers to one run on three hits over seven innings, striking out five and walking no one.
As good as that pitching matchup may be, the first of the evening’s two Apple TV+ games might be more compelling. Here’s that matchup:
Rays @ White Sox, Corey Kluber vs. Dylan Cease, 7:10 pm ET, Apple TV+
This game offers a matchup of two of last year’s division winners, a former Cy Young winner in Kluber and a pitcher some have pegged for a Cy Young-quality breakout this season in Cease, and it also gives us a chance to find out how much, if at all, Apple has managed to improve its broadcasts over the last week (see my review of their debut below). Cease dominated the Tigers in his season debut (5 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 8 K), and Kluber held the Orioles scoreless for 4 2/3 (though he also walked four).
Saturday, April 15
Pitching Matchup of the Day
Hunter Greene vs. Julio Urías, Reds @ Dodgers, 10:10 pm ET
Last year, Urías picked up some Cy Young votes for his 20-win season. But in his first start this year, Urías was lit up by the Rockies, allowing six runs in just two-plus innings without striking out any of the 16 batters he faced, and he left runners on the corners with no outs that Dodgers reliever Mitch White managed to strand. Rookie fireballer Hunter Greene impressed in his major league debut on Sunday, averaging 100 miles per hour with his fastball, striking out seven in five innings, and picking up the win, though he did allow a pair of home runs, both on the fastball.
The Reds-Dodgers game is the obvious marquee matchup, but a compelling alternate is this confrontation of young lefties:
Ranger Suárez vs. Trevor Rogers, Phillies @ Marlins, 6:10 pm ET
Rogers, the runner-up in last year’s Rookie of the Year award, had middling results in his first start of the season. Suárez, who made an impressive transition into the Phillies rotation in the middle of last year, failed to get out of the third inning against the Mets in his first turn of this season, though he wasn’t helped by Alec Bohm’s three errors behind him.
Sunday, April 16
Game of the Day
Braves @ Padres, Huascar Ynoa vs. Yu Darvish, 7:08 pm ET, ESPN
Given that there aren’t any particularly compelling pitching matchups on Sunday, you might as well go with the communal experience that is the ESPN Sunday Night game. The teams are both worth watching, and the pitchers are interesting in their own way. Ynoa was very good for the Braves early last season before breaking his pitching hand in anger after a bad start in Milwaukee (what was it about Milwaukee and pitchers failing to follow Crash Davis’s advice last year?). He wasn’t as sharp after his return, appeared in just one game in the postseason (coincidentally against the Brewers), and was hit hard by the Nationals in his first start this season. Darvish, in his own way, was excellent in the first half last year, lousy in the second half and has already had two wildly disparate starts this season: throwing six hitless innings against the Diamondbacks in his first (though he did walk four), then getting bounced in the second inning and tagged for nine runs, eight of which scored on his watch, by the Giants in his second.
Next Week
Series to Watch
Braves @ Dodgers: This matchup has blossomed into a bi-costal rivalry over the last few years. These two teams have met in the last two National League Championship Series, with the winner winning the World Series both years. In 2020, the Dodgers took the NLCS in seven games. Last year, the Braves took it in six. Then, this offseason, the Dodgers signed Freddie Freeman, and this series will mark his first time ever taking the field against the Braves. What more do you need? How about Max Fried vs. Clayton Kershaw in Monday’s opener and Charlie Morton vs. Walker Buehler on Tuesday?
Blue Jays @ Red Sox: The AL East is going to play like a round-robin tournament for most of the season. Thus far, the Red Sox lost two of three to the Yankees to open the season. The Blue Jays then followed the Sox into the Bronx and took two of the first three (that series concludes today with Kevin Gausman and Luis Severino on the bump). This series, a three-game set that starts on Tuesday, will be the first between Boston and Toronto and opens with José Berríos against Nathan Eovaldi, the best pitching matchup of the series.
Giants @ Mets: Last year’s surprise team and a one of the teams expected to take a big step forward this season, the Giants and Mets are both off to strong starts, going 5-2 and 4-2 respectively through the first week. This four-game set features good starting pitching throughout, but the must-see game is Tuesday’s, which pits Logan Webb, coming off a dominant outing, against Max Scherzer. Wednesday’s isn’t bad either; that’s Carlos Rodón vs. Chris Bassitt, both of whom earned Cy Young votes in the American League last year.
Angels @ Astros: Hope springs eternal in Anaheim. Heading into this weekend, the Angels are in second place in the AL West, just a game behind the Astros. Is it way to early to even look at the standings? Yes. Did the Astros already take two of three from the Angels in Anaheim to open the season? Yes. Would it still mean a lot to the Angels and their fans if they were able to win an early series against the Astros and possibly pull even or ahead in the division, even if it’s still mid-April and it only evened the season series between the two teams? Also yes. It looks like Shohei Ohtani will pitch the Wednesday finale in this three-game set, the second of his first three starts to come against Houston, so that would be the game to watch.
White Sox @ Guardians: The Guardians scored just one run in their first two games of the season, and have since scored seven or more in the next four. As a result, they are leading the majors with 7.5 runs scored per game and are a half-game behind the White Sox atop the AL Central. However, those outbursts have come against the Royals and Reds. Will their hot hitting continue through their weekend set against the Giants to the point that this series will be worth watching? I’m not convinced, but I do think the Thursday matchup of past pitching prospects is the one to watch both in this set and on the entire Thursday schedule.
Pitching Matchups to Watch
Monday, April 18
Max Fried vs. Clayton Kershaw, Braves @ Dodgers, 10:10 pm ET
Tuesday, April 19
Logan Webb vs. Max Scherzer, Giants @ Mets, 7:10 pm ET
Wednesday, April 20
Adam Wainwright vs. Sergio Alcantara, Cardinals @ Marlins, 6:40 pm ET
Thursday, April 21
Michael Kopech vs. Cal Quantrill, White Sox @ Guardians, 1:10 pm ET
Broadcast News
Baseball’s debut on Apple TV+
Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+ made its debut on Friday with the second game in the Mets-Nationals series in Washington, DC. It was . . . not well received. I want to be gentle here, because the contract giving Apple the rights to these MLB broadcasts was only announced on March 8, meaning Apple had just one month to get this broadcast together, and the Mets-Nationals game was just one of two overlapping games Apple streamed on Friday night.
You can see what Apple is trying to do, and, to my eye, there is considerable potential in their approach, but there are also a great many kinks that need to be worked out. The best parts of the broadcast were visual. The picture itself was extraordinarily sharp, and the graphic design was simple, clean, and elegant in ways that were reminiscent of Apple’s general design aesthetic, with its rounded corners, sans-serif fonts, and lack of unnecessary clutter, color, logos, or iconography.
Far less successful was the ever-present probability statistic in the lower-right corner of the screen, which updated the chances of one particular event—an RBI, a hit, a strikeout, etc.—occurring on the next pitch via statistics of dubious origin (at one point, it claimed that Pete Alonso’s chance of driving in a runner on second base were better than 50 percent). I disliked that feature because I found it distracting. I just couldn’t avoid trying to figure out where they got their numbers from and if there was any possible chance they could be accurate. I also disliked it because it’s a clear sop to sports gambling, which I find distasteful.
Apple does seem to be making an attempt to take a modern statistical approach to the game, and is doing so from scratch, rather than making the at-times awkward and insufficient transition that legacy broadcasters have been making over the last decade or so. It is also making a very obvious attempt to put new and younger voices in the booth. The Mets-Nationals game was called by Orioles broadcaster Melanie Newman, former major-league outfielder Chris Young, and Hannah Keyser of Yahoo Sports. The Angels-Astros game was called by MLB Network’s Stephen Nelson, former major-leaguer Hunter Pence, and Katie Nolan of NBC Sports. All six are under the age of 40, and only Pence is a white man.
With the exception of the Newman, however, those are also very inexperienced teams. Pence was an active player through the 2020 season. He was just hired by the MLB Network this offseason. Young, who played through 2018, was just hired by the Network last May. Nelson, who is 33, has more experience calling hockey games than baseball games. Nolan has a ton of experience on the air as a host of her own shows on ESPN and ESPN2, but, best I can tell, little to no experience in a broadcast both and, while with ESPN, was more of a generalist with an emphasis on football. Keyser is a baseball reporter and has experience as an on-camera host, as well, but, prior to Friday night’s game, she tweeted “Tonight I’ll help broadcast the Mets-Nationals game on Apple TV+, the first time I’ve ever done anything at all like that.”
I’m all for putting a wider array of voices in the booth, and I was pleasantly surprised when I turned on the Mets-Nationals game and heard two women and a Black man calling the game. Newman, in particular, is a great hire. However, the collective inexperience of the booth, combined with what I can only assume was a directive from Apple to keep things, young, hip, and chatty (as opposed to, you know, game-focused and informative) proved detrimental. The Mets-Nationals broadcast was particularly problematic, as the booth engaged in long, rambling, breathless conversations; constant chatter that, at times, actively ignored compelling action on the field.
In the top of the ninth, Pete Alonso led off with a double off the top of the left-field wall, missing a home run by an inch or two. In her initial call, Newman said “it tucks itself up against the wall.” Young broke down the pitch type and location. Keyser chimed in with some more information about Alonso’s success hitting at Nationals Park, and Newman mentioned Alonso’s preseason car accident. However, none of the three ever commented on where the ball hit on the wall despite the replay crew showing where the ball hit in slow motion four times, after which the director cut to the indentation the ball made at the top of the wall.
Not that the technical crew had a great night, either. At times, the technical director (the person responsible for making the switch from one camera to another upon the director’s instruction) seemed to be pressing random buttons, cycling through every available camera shot live on air while trying to find the right one. In the top of the fifth, Francisco Lindor squared to bunt and was hit in the face by a Steve Cishek pitch, leading to both benches emptying while Lindor lay face-down in the batter’s box. The pitch was replayed multiple times, but we never saw a slow-motion replay that made it clear what the point of impact was. Did it the pitch hit Lindor cleanly? Did it catch the C-flap on his helmet and ricochet into his face? Did it tip his bat? In his post-game interview, Mets manager Buck Showalter said that he had yet to hear of anyone who had seen a replay that showed the point of impact.
The Mets-Nationals broadcast got the brunt of the abuse on Twitter, while the aspect of the Angels-Astros broadcast that got the most attention was when rookie Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña hit his first career home run while his parents, including father and former major leaguer Geronimo Peña, were being interviewed by Heidi Watney in the stands.
Despite all of the above, the thing that I found most striking about the initial Apple broadcasts was that the games were streamed live only, with no ability for viewers to pause, rewind, or start the game from the beginning if they arrived late. I’m willing to give Apple some leeway to learn and make improvements as the season progresses, but the lack of DVR controls on a streaming sports broadcast in 2022 is unforgivable.
Rooting for Laundry
Astros launch their City Connect uniforms
Two weeks ago, I nitpicked the Nationals’ new cherry-blossom-themed City Connect uniforms like crazy, so you might expect that I am not a fan of the Astros’ all-navy entry into the series, which was revealed on Sunday. It’s true that there are great many little things that I don’t like about the new Astros uniforms, and it’s not difficult to argue that, on pure aesthetic terms, the Nationals’ City Connects are better than the Astros’. However, on the whole, I actually like the new Astros uniforms.
There are two primary reasons that I’m more forgiving of the Astros’ city uniforms than I was the Nationals’. The first, and most important, is the context of the two teams’ primary uniforms. The Nationals, as I detailed in Issue 118, seem to have finally landed on a handsome primary set, with the script “Nationals” on the home whites and a matching navy alternate to match the script on their standard road grays.
The Astros, meanwhile, have one of the worst primary looks in the majors. For a franchise that brought us the Colts’ smoking gun, the Astros’ initial shooting star, and the subsequent tequila sunrise look, their current block-letter look, even though it takes its font from the franchise’s 1960s roadies, is both boring and ugly. When the Astros moved to the American League in 2013, I was thrilled that they brought back the navy and orange and the H on the star on their caps, but I have been waiting ever since for them to do something more interesting with their uniforms.
These new City Connects are far from perfect, but they’re a darn sight more interesting than what the Astros wear on a daily basis, and they suggest a way forward to a more interesting base unform for Houston, one based in the other primary reason that I’m more forgiving of these Astros uniforms: nostalgia.
The primary innovation of these uniforms is the use of NASA’s worm font as a way to lean harder into the space-program root of the team’s nickname. The solar-array pattern on the sleeves, the bright orange and tequila-sunrise gradients on the dark navy uniforms, and the NASA font combine to give these uniforms a feel that conjures up the aesthetics of NASA (which introduced the worm font in 1975), early ATARI games (the company was founded in 1972), Disney’s Space Mountain (which opened in 1975), and the movie Tron (released in 1982). Additionally, the uniform number on the pants harks back to pants that the team wore with during the first five seasons of the tequila sunrise jerseys (1975–79), a time frame that very much synchs up with the cultural signifiers I just mentioned. As a child of the time when those things all represented the cutting edge of technology, I’m very much on board with this look.
So, the flag patch (which reads “Space City Houston, TX” with the city’s four area codes in the corners) is kind of clunky. The “Astros” patch on the cap feels unnecessary. The gradient on the piping is questionable. I’ve never heard anyone call Houston “Space City,” though that has been the city’s official nickname since 1967 (two years after the Houston franchise adopted its space-related nickname). There are some details inside the cap (the silhouette of the Eagle lunar lander on a tag and “Houston, the Eagle has landed.” along the front-to-back seam) that you’ll never see on the field. Even the modified H-on-star logo on the cap leaves something to be desired.
Still, I’m down with all of it because I think the Astros should be steering into these space-program-related aesthetics with their standard uniforms. “Astros” would look great in the worm font (with the S connecting to the T). It has been my hope with this City Connect series that the teams with the worst uniforms might be able to find new looks via the experimentation the series encourages. In one of the earliest issues of The Cycle, I ranked the Astros’ current uniforms 27th out of the 30 teams. Maybe they can build on these, admittedly far from perfect, alternates to find a way to climb up those rankings.
Feedback
I want to hear from you. Got a question, a comment, a request? Reply to this issue. Want to interview me on your podcast, send me your book, bake me some cookies? Reply to this issue. I will respond, and if I find your question particularly interesting, I’ll feature it in a future issue.
You can also write me at cyclenewsletter[at]substack[dot]com, or @ me on twitter @CliffCorcoran.
Closing Credits
Zolar X were a Los Angeles glam-rock band that presented themselves on stage and on record as space aliens, complete with shiny space suits, bulb-tipped antennae, and their own alien language. The band’s schtick didn’t generate much record-company interest, but they were a well-known local live act and the house band at Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco, a popular glam-rock club on the Sunset Strip in the early ’70s, which gave Zolar X an opportunity to perform on bills with some of the era’s top glam acts, including Iggy Pop and the New York Dolls.
Zolar X didn’t record a proper album until 1982, but they did cut a two-song demo in 1974 in an ultimately failed attempt to land a record contract. They pressed just ten copies of that two-sided 7-inch and gave most of them to disinterested record companies, but one survived long enough to be digitized, allowing us to end this week’s issue with the vintage Zolar X tune “Space Age Love,” credited to songwriters Ygarr Ygarrist and Zory Zenith (a.k.a. singer/keyboardist Stephen Della Bosca and singer/drummer Billy Myers). Their Astros uniform review is in the outro:
You know, some people think we look kind of crazy,
That’s ridiculous!
Because, I mean, after all, we think all of you look astronomical!
Zap, you’re Zolarized!
The Cycle will return next Friday, workload permitting. In the meantime: