With three genuine aces in the rotation for the first time in 40 years, the Gophers, a team traditionally built around offense, has a different look for 2019. Sadly, the results fell well short of the expectations for two of the three aces in March. Jacob deGrom went 1-2 with a 4.76 ERA over five starts, and Justin Verlander was hit even harder, going 2-1 with a 6.99 ERA in his five outings. Thankfully, Trevor Bauer held up his end, going 3-1 with a 1.61 ERA in four starts. The Gophers, however, went only 6-8 in their aces’ 14 starts for the month, which ain’t gonna cut it.
The bullpen, which features solid arms but lacks a true closer, had a nightmarish opening month. The pen routinely blew leads and completely imploded at least once per series. Relievers with inflated ERAs include Ryan Pressley (11.05), Jordan Hicks (9.00), TJ McFarland (6.75) and Steve Cishek (5.25). Long reliever Mike Montgomery bucked that trend, however, posting a 1.56 ERA over 17.1 innings and notching four saves (all of the nine-out variety). Overall, however, the Gophers went 0-3 in extra inning games.
Offensively, the under-achievers outnumbered the overachievers. There was George Springer at .167, second-round draft pick Kike Hernandez at .158, Joey Gallo at .143 and Isiah Kiner-Falefa at ,087. SS Paul DeJong earned hitter of the month honors, with 7 homers and 15 RBIs, hitting .357 with a .905 slugging and a 1.254 OPS. Ryan Zimmerman’s stats were even better in part-time duty: hitting .393 and slugging .893 with an OPS of 1.326. First-round pick Jesus Aguilar led the squad with 17 RBIs but hit just .200.
The Gophers finished in a dead heat on the monthly run-differential column, scoring and allowing 96 runs.
Filed under: 2019 season, Gopher Holes | Tagged: I-75 Strat-O-Matic League, Strat-O-Matic, Strat-O-Matic baseball | Leave a comment »