After eight games of baseball, its not to early to draw conclusions right? These are the three biggest things I took away from the first week of the MLB. The Angels could be a contender this year, the Yankees line-up is dangerous and Gape Keplar's first impression as a manager.
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim made big moves this off season acquiring veterans like Zack Cozart and Ian KInsler and lets not forget about the versatile Shohei Ohtani. KInsler is still filling into his shoes, but Cozart had a walk off homerun already this year and Ohtani has had back to back games with a home run. One coming off the reigning Cy Young winner Corey Kluber. He also got the win in his first start, having six strikeouts and allowing only three earned runs. This team looks dangerous if they can keep this trend throughout the entire season, having arguably the best player in baseball with Mike trout to help them out. If this team can stay healthy, look for them to be a sleeper coming out of the American League this season.
Now imagine this, you are pitching against the New York Yankees, you see Aaron Judge at bat, Giancarlo Stanton on deck and Gary Sanchez in the hole on the edge of the dugout. What do you do? Its going to be a challenge for each team this year. Because after them is Didi Gregorious who has been on fire as well so far. Lets not forget though about this Yankees pitching, each of the starters in the first five games allowed only 1 run. You have a team that from top to bottom can hit, with a starting rotation that seems to be pitching with even more confidence this season. The Yankees are a big threat to the defending champion Astros and are going to make it tough on the Boston Red Sox this season as well.
Gabe Keplar had a rough first week as the Philadelphia Phillies manger to say the least, the big controversy of the week was when the Phillies were up 5-0 on the Atlanta braves and Keplar made the move to take out ace Aaron Nola against the Atlanta Braves at only 68 pitches. This lead to the Braves coming back and eventually winning the game by a score of 8-5. Look, there are going to be growing pains in a lot of teams that don't have much experience as a manager. The big thing if you are a player is to not panic and trust that things will eventually fall into place. If you find yourself at the All-Star break still asking the same question's then you have an issue and it will affect the clubhouse and the team as a whole.
It's going to be an interesting year of baseball, things are just getting started and I cant wait to see what the 2018 season holds.
