State of the Ship: All evened up

Given that we've passed the 36 game mark, putting us 22.2222222% of the way through the season, it seems like the perfect time to examine how our team has fared so far!

Ok, not the perfect time... but as good a time as any. After a gruesome 2-9 start, we've gone 16-9 to improve to 18-18. Our series defeat against New Orleans this past week snapped a streak of 6 straight series wins. Right now, we're not as good as we wanted to be, but we're in a great position to break out. Here are my notes on what we've done so far, what our bright spots are, and what we need to improve upon:

- There is no one, anywhere, who will argue against Rob McNamara being our MVP thus far. He's hitting .375 with 9 homers and 13 doubles, and he is well on his way to having the best season of his career so far. He's also giving us exceptional defense up the middle, sporting the second-best fielding percentage of any starting 2B in the AL. Even if he only plays 123 games (as he did last year) he's on pace for about 31 homers, 44 doubles, and 130 RBI. Those are MVP numbers right there.

- Our two big rookies, Danny Milligan and Cyrus Torres, pretty much round out our top 3 players at this point. Milligan is batting .350 (and that's after slowing down over the past week or so) and giving us stellar defense behind the bag. Torres has only been up for 3 starts, but he's won all 3 of them, sporting a cool 2.61 ERA. He pitches again tonight against Augusta, a subpar offensive team so far this season, and he is looking to start his career 4-0. Both of these guys should be easy Rookie of the Year candidates, and don't be surprised to see them both at the All-Star game this year.

- Our fielding has been surprising this year; we're currently 4th in the AL in fielding percentage. This almost worries me, because we're not that good of a defensive team, but still, if our guys can keep up the good work in the field it should allow our pitching to carry more games for us this season.

- Speaking of our pitching, it's been spotty at best. Torres is an extreme bright spot, Don Wang has been excellent as expected, and Marino Fuentes has been such a surprise that he assumed the closer role after Harry Paz got traded. The rest of our pitching, however, has been mediocre if not awful. If you count both Jeffrey Rivera and Ivan Dotel as starters (they've been rotating in and out of the bullpen), then we've got 5 starters with ERAs over 5. Yes, you heard me right. A team that was supposedly built on pitching has only 1 of 6 starters with an ERA under 5, and that's Torres. Our team ERA is third-to-last in the AL, and our bullpen has been about as bad as expected. Overall, if we want to contend at all this year, our pitching has got to snap out of it, and fast.

- Vic Servet deserves special mention, because he is like a totally different player this year. While last season he acted like a malcontent much of the time, this season his teammates have called him a joy to play with, and the joy is showing. He's hitting .304 and already has 14 doubles (he had 18 all of last year). In 130 games he'd hit about 51 at this pace. He only has 3 homers, but hopefully his stroke will come back around as well. He's even giving us improved defense at CF. With my favorite season 8 rookie Orval Yeats still slumping, Servet has even moved into a leadoff role, and he has certainly earned it thus far.

- Prezuiwf has done a lot to restock our farm system. Jose Moreno, Max Guillen, and Bart Hamelin should all be very good ML contributors in a couple of years, and we had to give up very little talent that we had real major league plans for. I think prezuiwf has done a good job finding future talent this year, though I'm a bit critical of his inability to bring much in to shore up our woes at the big club this season.

Well, that's it for now. I'll finally be attending my first Snow Pirates game of the season tonight against Augusta, so if anyone is sitting in section 209, look for me. I'll be the guy in the dirty Jared Brown jersey (I really should pick up a Yeats or Torres jersey while I'm there). See you at the ballgame!