Opening Weekend Report Card

Offense: C+

A definite mix of bright spots and disappointments. On the bright side, both Josh Bell and Nathaniel Lowe have put some good swings on the ball, and of course Keibert Ruiz has been excellent. On the not-so-bright side, apart from Paul DeJong’s 3 hits on Sunday, the bottom half of the order - including Crews and Young, have not performed well. It is hard to look past Crews' active streak of 8 consecutive Ks.

Defense: B

Though the defense has technically committed only one error, there are a few caveats. In Game 1, there simply wasn’t much for them to do; at first, because Gore didn’t allow the Phillies to put the ball in play, and then because there is no defense for walks and homers. Ruiz nabbing a base-stealer was a nice bonus though. In Game 2, James Wood’s lackadaisical catch in the outfield wasn’t actually an error, but was discouraging, plus Crews could have made that catch in the RF corner. Crews has the only error from the three games on Sunday, and DeJong made multiple above-average plays at 3B. Overall, the defense hasn’t been tested much yet, but so far, not bad.

Starting Pitching: A

Easy grade here! The three starters - Gore, Irvin, and Parker - combined to pitch 17 ⅓ innings and only giving up 2 earned runs - an ERA of 1.05.  Toss in a total of 4 walks against 20 strikeouts, and there is only a little nitpicking to do.  Parker seemed to nibble a bit through a few innings Sunday, or maybe feeling for some control, and Gore produced lots of foul balls that drove up his pitch count.  No complaints here.

Bullpen: F

Ever flunk a test so badly there isn’t any reason to look at the paper?  That’s basically the bullpen through these 3 games. Jorge Lopez had a nice appearance Sunday, and Finnegan got out of the Brad Lord-created jam, but that’s about it.