A Tale of Two Cities

With about a month of baseball played, the two MLB teams that I follow, The Boston Red Sox (by birth) and the Washington Nationals (by geography) are at divergent ends of the baseball spectrum.

The Boston Red Sox are 16-8, which is no surprise because strong starts are historically required for the heartbreak that usually comes later on in the season. (This is why smart Red Sox fans will not gloat to fans of the Yank-mes, who will and should retort that it's May, not October). The Sox are 4th in runs scored and 4th in runs allowed and the only team that's in the top 3 above them in both two categories are the N.Y. Mets, who sit at 15-8.

Contrast that to the Washington Nationals, who were picked to be the worst team in the majors (yes, even worse than Kansas City) and are meeting those expectations with the fewest runs scored, 78, or a little more than 3 per game. This includes a season-opening streak of 23 games without scoring in the first inning. The pitching isn't much better: 134 runs allowed, "good" for 4th most in the majors and not helped by the fielding: MLB-worst 25 errors in 25 games.

I think there is something to experiencing both the highs and the lows of baseball because one of the reasons that many, if not most, Yank-me fans are so insufferable is that they expect to win, like it's their birthright. If the Nationals are able to raise themselves out from this abyss, as they claim they are doing and more importantly, by how they are doing it (restocking the farm system, not free-agent spending) it will be nice to see — especially if there's a player or two that I saw at Potomac for more than a week or two.