A 162-homer season and more ridiculous trends from MLB's opening week

The first few days of a new MLB season provide some of the greatest overreactions and memes we’ll see all year. Clearly, White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami hitting home runs in his first three games means that he’s going to post the first 162-homer season in league history!

Baseball is a long season, or so the cliché goes. What we’ve seen over the first week isn’t always a sign of what’s to come, though I nonetheless noticed some interesting trends and tidbits in recent days. (And no, I’m not talking about Shohei Ohtani’s uncharacteristic slump at the plate or Paul Skenes’ ugly Opening Day start.)

For this list, let’s look beyond the superstars and our fantasy teams and try to analyze what’s really going on in Major League Baseball.

No, we’re not going to see a 162-0 or 162-home run season

Of all the great prank calls to longtime New York sports radio host Mike Francesa, I personally give the annual “Will the Mets go 162-0?” gags a solid “B” grade. Remember, we’ve never even seen a team surpass 116 wins in the regular season, so Francesa’s lack of patience always makes me smile.

Alas, there are officially no undefeated teams remaining, so Francesa won’t have an opportunity to be proven wrong. (Not that he’d ever admit that he was wrong.)

The same almost certainly goes for a player hitting 162 home runs in a season — an annual joke which resurfaced after Murakami’s excellent series in Milwaukee. Honestly, prior to 2022, I was skeptical we’d see a player reach 60 home runs anytime soon, yet Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh chose to make me eat my words. But, even if Judge traded Yankee Stadium for Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, I don’t think he’d even break Barry Bonds’ single-season record of 73.

Where have all of the runs gone?

I know it’s early, but I want to see some offense! The Giants only scored one run in getting swept by the Yankees at home. Only two of the 10 AL East and AL Central teams woke up on Wednesday with a positive run differential, and the Blue Jays are even. The Rockies were only +2 because they routed the Blue Jays 14–5 on Monday night. Colorado only scored eight runs in the other four games combined, which tracks.

Should we be concerned by teams collectively hitting .232 leaguewide? Of course not. MLB teams hit .245 last year, up from .243 a year earlier. Things will work themselves out.

Former NPB and KBO pitchers had a week to forget

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Cody Ponce was the unfortunate victim of one of the season’s early lowlights, leaving Monday’s start on a cart with a knee injury. Ponce — who dominated with a 1.89 ERA and 180.2 innings in the KBO last year — suffered an ACL sprain and is out indefinitely.

Although other former NPB and KBO pitchers avoided injury this past weekend, they didn’t exactly have starts to remember. Astros rookie Tatsuya Imai allowed four walks and four hits, and didn’t make it out of the third inning against the Angels in his first MLB start. Anthony Kay, a former Mets first-round pick who played the last two years in Japan, walked four in 4.2 innings for the White Sox that same day.

At least Foster Griffin, a Royals first-round pick in 2014, picked up the win in his Nationals debut on Monday night. Griffin, who spent the last three seasons in Japan, struck out five and held the Phillies to two runs over five innings, holding his own against a loaded Philadelphia lineup.

New year, new must-follow X accounts

As Mets owner Steve Cohen once aptly put it, social media is a minefield. Once in a while, though, you come across an X or Instagram account and immediately turn on push notifications for it. That’s me with Pitchergami, a new X account dedicated to checking every starting pitcher’s line to determine whether or not the combination of innings pitched, hits, earned runs, walks, and strikeouts is unique.

There have already been 22 unique lines this season, including Athletics pitcher Luis Severino in Tuesday’s loss. Severino allowed four hits, four earned runs, and five walks, and recorded seven strikeouts. Who’d have guessed that, in a sport that has existed in its current form for nearly 130 years, Tuesday night marked the first time we’d seen that stat line?

An MLB version of Scorigami, the ever-popular NFL X account, now exists. If you’re ever needing a fun fact to break the ice, here’s one: There has been a 5–1 final score nearly 5,500 times in MLB history. I also suggest following TapToChallenge, which monitors every challenged pitch in the automated ball-strike challenge system era. No word if CB Bucknor has blocked them from a burner account, though.

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