By Jake McCormick
After watching the Milwaukee Brewers go from getting four hits in a shutout to 10 runs in an inning 24 hours later, I’ve never been happier to know that there are 150 games left to play.
After losing six of their last nine games against the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, and the Washington Nationals over the weekend, a city looking forward to at least a competitive Brewers season transformed into a city rife with doomsday baseball prophets on every corner. Funny those sentiments were the complete opposite in Milwaukee in 2007, when the team started the season 24-10.
Let’s put this into perspective for all those early under/overachieving teams. One NFL game is 6% of the regular season, which converted into MLB numbers equals 11 games out of 162. Judging an NFL team’s season by its first game is laughable in any circle of discussion, and there really isn’t a difference when doing the same after 10 baseball games.
If the MLB season ended today, Prince Fielder would have be homerless, Pittsburgh would have their first winning season in 17 years, Scott Podsednik and Ivan Rodriguez would win each league’s batting title, and Carlos Silva, Brad Penny, Livan Hernandez, Dana Eveland and Matt Garza would dominate the ERA record books. I would bet my Xbox 360 that none of these things will hold true through September.
Sidenote: I do have to give props to Hernandez for his pitching clinic Saturday against the Brewers; I used to love watching him with the Florida Marlins when I was a kid and it was actually easy to watch my favorite team’s euthanization at the hands of the big Cuban. After watching the three-game series, the Nationals will be a contender in two years as their young staff catches up with their sneaky good offense.
With that said, it’s extremely easy to overreact to any early season hot/cold streak in baseball; the games have no time limit, there’s no immediate reciprocation of scoring chances like in basketball and football, and one position (the pitcher) can completely dictate the pace and outlook of a game.
A .100 batting average looks bad regardless the number of at-bats, a 12.00 ERA is even worse even though it’s only a two game measurement, and a bad bullpen is just the icing on the crap cake. But again, everything is a matter of perspective, and by the end of the season the majority of ballplayers will put up numbers around their career averages.
There are always teams that play possum for four months and enter attack mode over the last two months of the season for a last second playoff push, so it’s even presumptuous to rule a team dead and buried by August. So why do some fans jump ship so early in the marathon?
We live in a country that has gotten used to instant gratification. A 35-minute wait for a table at a popular restaurant is the equivalent of food deprivation for some people. We expect politicians to flip a change switch the second they take office. Sports GMs, coaches, and managers are routinely on the chopping block even if it’s their first year on the job. Everyone is guilty of some form of overreaction because of some dissatisfaction over having to wait longer than desired.
You can’t judge a book by its cover, a movie by its beginning, or a NASCAR race by its first few laps. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, an MLB season isn’t defined in its first month. Enjoy the fact that an early season game is such a small piece of the puzzle that it will be forgotten by midseason. As a Brewer fan, it’s saved part of my baseball sanity, and it could do the same for you.