The Least Interesting Number

Let’s start with Dean Salvucci, because nobody else in baseball can do what he’s doing, and he isn’t doing it the way anybody would.

Through 48 games, Salvucci is hitting .193. He has 20 home runs, more than anyone in The Big League. He has fewer than one hit for every five times he comes up, and when he does get one, it has a way of leaving the ballpark.

Here are Dean Salvucci’s batting averages, season by season, since he came into the league in 2026: .199, .210, .187, .180, .200, .220. He has never hit higher than .220 in his life. In 2028 he hit .187 and hit 40 home runs. Last year he hit .220, the best average of his career, and hit 43.

So there’s no slump to wait out. This is who Dean Salvucci has been every year, only more so.

He is on pace for about 68 home runs. The league record is 66, by Steve Miller of the 2002 New Orleans Mudcats. And in 31 seasons, nobody has ever led this league in home runs while hitting below .233. Adam Castillo of Big Horn hit .233 with 50 in 2027, and that’s the floor. Salvucci is forty points under it.

“Salvucci has more war then my next 4 best batters combined,” Josh wrote from Montreal.

.193. That’s the first two months. Hold onto it, because it turns out to explain a lot.

1.

Here is the shape of the league on May 24, in round numbers.

Milwaukee and Galveston are 32-16, tied for the best record in baseball. Somerville and Kansas City are 31-17. Memphis and Spokane are 14-34, tied for the worst. The defending champions are 22-26. The club with the largest payroll in the league is 22-26. Those are the same club.

The club with the best run differential in baseball, Myrtle Beach at plus-73, is in second place in its own division. The club with the third-highest payroll, Big Horn, is in third place in its own division. The club with the third-lowest payroll, Kansas City, is a game out of first.

That’s the thing about 48 games. It’s enough to tell you who’s hot and who’s hurt. It’s not quite enough to tell you who’s good, and every club in this league has spent two months finding that out one way or another.

2.

Go back to the home run board for a minute, because Salvucci isn’t alone up there.

The four men with the most home runs in The Big League are Salvucci (20), Ryan Metcalf of Mexico City (19), Jared Mettler of Kansas City (15) and Jason Mills of Toronto (14).

Salvucci is hitting .193. Metcalf is hitting .221, and he also leads the league with 47 runs batted in. Mills is hitting .175. Mills led this league in home runs in 2030, with 47, hitting .263. This year he’s hitting 88 points lower and his home runs are still coming.

Mettler is the odd man out, at .269, and he’s odd in the other direction too. He has 23 stolen bases to go with the 15 home runs, third in the league in steals, and he’s making the league minimum.

Three of the top four home run hitters in baseball are hitting .221 or lower. Chicago’s Tim Hart is hitting .188 with 11 home runs, which means 11 of his 24 hits have left the park. The batting average, in this league, in this year, is the least interesting number on the back of the card.

The best average in baseball, by the way, belongs to Jeff Williams of Rochester, who is hitting .365 with 73 hits, the most in the league. Ashton Turner is right behind him at .357. The best hitter by OPS is Jeremy Porten of Oklahoma City, at 1.074. None of the three is in the top four in home runs.

3.

Now Kansas City, which is the story nobody predicted.

The preseason projections had Brad’s Scouts at 82-80. They’re 31-17. Only two clubs in baseball are spending less than Kansas City’s $103.2 million. Here is the pitching: Nate Peterson, 2.28, league minimum. Jason Bell, 2.62, league minimum. Frank Smith, 2.30, league minimum. Chris Williams, 3-0 out of the bullpen, league minimum. The staff has allowed 175 runs, second-fewest in baseball.

Ben Taylor has 18 saves, the most in the league. He’s on pace for better than 60. The league record is 54, by Shane Markward in 2013.

Brad did spend this winter. Freddy Echeverria, the $192 million man, is 4-2 with a 3.94, which is fine. Rob O’Neill, the catcher he signed the same day, has 11 home runs and a .562 slugging percentage from behind the plate, which is better than fine. Sergio Soto, in the last year of his deal, is hitting .327 and drove in eight runs in a 15-7 win over Memphis on April 20.

Brad, for his part, isn’t buying any of it. “Team always jumps off to a good start then crashes,” he wrote this week.

Corbin Dietrich of the *Kansas City Star-Journal* would point out that the Scouts are 23-4 against clubs currently under .500 and 8-13 against clubs over it, and that’s a fair thing to point out. But the three seasons before this one ended at 70, 72 and 75 wins, and this one is 31-17 at the end of May, and nobody can take that part away.

4.

Milwaukee is 32-16, and Milwaukee is 11-2 in one-run games.

Here is the thing about Milwaukee. Ryan went into the winter tired of not having a number one starter, so he got one, Alex Sanchez, from Toronto. It cost him Joe Case, two minor leaguers, and Milwaukee’s first, second, third and fourth round picks in this year’s draft. When the draft came around this month, the club with a share of the best record in baseball didn’t pick until the fifth round.

Sanchez is 5-1 with a 3.29. The bullpen, full of men Ryan signed this winter at 30 and older, has a 2.84. Steve Summey, a 25-year-old middle reliever making $500,000, is 7-1. Seven wins, out of the bullpen, in May. The Mobsters have drawn 192 walks, the most in the league.

Danny Kolar, who covers the club for the *Milwaukee Sentinel-Press*, called the one-run record “a loan that gets called in,” and he’s probably right. A team that’s 11-2 in one-run games is usually a very good team with a couple of wins it hasn’t earned yet. Milwaukee’s run differential is plus-35, which is good, and which is also Rochester’s run differential, and we’ll get to Rochester.

Then, at the end of the stretch, Jesus Espinosa got hurt, and it’s a long one. Espinosa has a Rookie of the Year award and four Platinum Sticks and is the best player on the club.

“i trade away all my picks,” Ryan wrote, “and god strikes down my best player.”

5.

Galveston is the other 32-16, and Galveston did it cheaper than anybody near the top.

Jeremy’s payroll is $124.3 million, 25th of 32. Greg Wilks makes the league minimum and has a 2.34 earned run average. Jeremy Lowry makes the league minimum and has a 2.96. Antonio Perez makes the league minimum and has 14 saves. The Gremlins won nine straight from April 18 through April 27, and they came into this week having won four in a row after sweeping New York.

And there’s Ashton Turner. Last year Turner lost the Ice Conference MVP by one first-place vote. This year he’s hitting .357 with a .411 on-base percentage, and his 46 runs scored lead the league by eight. He has 24 stolen bases. The winter took Echeverria, Mike Boller and Danny Stanescu away from Galveston in free agency, and the club came back with the best record in the Ice Conference anyway, and a share of the best in baseball with Milwaukee.

The preseason projections had the Gremlins second in the Jade. They’re first. They’re 10-3 in one-run games, and that will come back some, and they had four men on the injured list on May 24, including Ricardo Sainz, who had a 1.72 in six starts. Ruthie Alcorn, who writes *The Galveston Grotto*, has been defending the plan for years. “It is nice,” she wrote, “to have the standings agree for once.”

6.

Now, the one-run games, because they have decided more of this season than anything else.

Milwaukee is 11-2 in games decided by a run. Galveston is 10-3. New York, which has the worst offense in baseball, is 11-7.

And then there’s the other end.

Rochester is 1-9. Memphis is 0-7.

Memphis has played seven one-run games this season and lost all seven. It has played three extra-inning games and lost all three. Ten times a game has come down to the last thing that happened, and ten times it went the other way. Otis Frayne, who has covered the Blues since 2001, put it this way in the *Memphis Delta Times*: it’s “the kind of statistic a person from another town would call bad luck and a person from this one would recognize on sight.”

New Orleans has played 25 one-run games, which is a lot of one-run games for 48, and lost 15 of them.

7.

Which brings us to Rochester, and to Keven.

Michael stepped away after last season with four titles. Keven came over from Toronto to replace him. What Keven inherited was a club that had won 98, 102 and 100 games in the three years before this one, and the projections picked it to win 99.

The North Stars are 23-25.

Here is the strange part. Rochester has scored 240 runs, third-most in baseball. It is second in batting average and second in on-base percentage. Its run differential is plus-34. Milwaukee’s is plus-35. Those two clubs have outscored their opponents by almost exactly the same amount, and one of them is 32-16 and the other is 23-25, nine games apart.

The difference is the late innings. Milwaukee is 11-2 in one-run games. Rochester is 1-9. The Rochester bullpen has a 4.64 earned run average, 27th in the league.

Keven knows it. He put the word out this week: “Looking for above average relievers. Will pay handsomely for the right guy.”

Jeff Williams, meanwhile, is hitting .365. Joey Reek, last year’s Ice Pitcher of the Year, is 5-2 with a 2.20 and 79 strikeouts. Williams came to Rochester in a trade in 2027 when he was 19, and he’s 24 now, and he’s leading the league in hitting on a club that can’t win a close game.

8.

And Toronto, the club Keven left, still has nobody in the chair.

Every two weeks, the commissioner’s office has closed its notes to the league with the same line: “Toronto is still open. If you know someone, let me know.” Nobody has taken it.

The Griffins are 19-29. They went 2-10 in the first twelve games of the season, then 4-8, then 9-3, then 4-8. They lead the entire league in home runs with 72. Their pitchers have allowed 74, more than anybody. Julio Duenas fills out the lineup card every afternoon for a club with no general manager above him.

Here’s the detail that sticks. When Keven left for Rochester, he left behind the picks from his December trades, which meant Toronto went into this month’s draft with two first-round picks, its own and Milwaukee’s. Every other club in the league had a general manager on the phone when its turn came. Toronto had nobody in the room. The Griffins took Chase Williams at 12 and Pat Heick at 19 anyway.

Alex Moralez, the third baseman the Griffins signed in January for $88 million with nobody in the chair, has 13 home runs and 36 runs batted in. Brian Baker has 13 home runs too. And on April 10, in Boston, Luis Martinez hit for the cycle in a 14-5 win. It was one of two cycles in the league through the first two months.

“Somebody should take the job,” Hollis Weir wrote in *Toronto Sporting Life*. “There are 114 games left and a good deal worth keeping.”

9.

Chicago went the other way, and then the other other way.

Mike’s Black Sox lost their first two games to Boston and then won 12 straight, beginning March 31. That included a sweep in Philadelphia, a sweep of Toronto, and a sweep in Somerville. Nobody else has beaten Somerville three straight all year. On April 13, Chicago was 12-2.

Since then Chicago is 9-25. There was an eight-game losing streak from May 4 to May 13. Mike, as usual, said it best himself: “Nothing like cancelling out a 10-2 start with a 1-11 sim.”

Then he found out why. Victor Gonzales, who has already won an MVP, and Katsutoshi Wada, who was slugging .631, both went on the injured list. The two best hitters on the club have played 46 games between them. “Wada and Victor Gonzales got hurt,” Mike wrote, “now the sim makes sense.”

Shizuma Oda, the closer Mike got from Toronto in December for a 2033 first-round pick, has a 0.53 earned run average and nine saves, and he’s the one piece of the winter that has worked without an asterisk. Billy Perez, back where his career started, has allowed 11 home runs, second-most in the league.

And the draft. Remember “four picks in a row”? It ended up being more than that. Chicago made five picks in the first round, at 16, 22, 23, 24 and 25, using first-rounders that started the year belonging to Baltimore, Cincinnati, Huron and Somerville. Seven clubs had no first-round pick at all. Chicago had five.

10.

JR’s Somerville is 31-17, and it has not put a single player on the injured list all season.

Not once, through 48 games. Montreal, in the same division, had seven men on the list on May 24. Priya Ranganathan, who writes *The Straight Line*, noticed it and led with it, and she’s right that it’s the most unusual number on the club.

The rest of the Moneyline is the Moneyline. They’re first in the Sapphire at plus-61. Their staff has 539 strikeouts, the most in baseball by a wide margin. The bullpen has already thrown 200 innings, seventh-most in the league, with a 2.70 earned run average, and Alex Rangel’s 0.47 is the kind of number that makes a manager take his starter out early. Antonio Reyna is 36 and has 12 home runs. Dave Tyler has 40 runs batted in.

The projections picked Somerville to win 101 games, the most in the league. They’re on pace for about 105.

And Somerville still draws. The Moneyline are averaging 44,445 a game, the most in the league.

11.

The Moneyline are also 6-0 against Baltimore.

Steve’s Blue Crabs were swept in Somerville to open the season and swept at home three weeks later. Six games. Not one of them was decided by more than three runs.

You know why that’s interesting. These two clubs have met in each of the last two Octobers, both times in the wild card round, and both times the underdog swept. In 2030 an 88-74 Somerville swept a 100-win Baltimore. In 2031 an 83-80 Baltimore, which had to win a tiebreaker just to get in, swept Somerville’s 105-win club. Two sweeps, two upsets, one apiece.

So 0-6 in May tells you exactly nothing about October, and everybody in Baltimore knows that, and everybody in Baltimore is looking at it anyway.

Baltimore is 25-23 and in a tie for third. Jake McHan is 6-1 at the league minimum. Johnny Cunnane has 14 saves. Roy Bell, back from 36 days on the injured list, has walked one man in four starts.

12.

Montreal has the best pitching staff in The Big League, and Montreal can’t keep it on the field.

The Machine are first in earned run average at 3.17, first in fewest runs allowed with 165, first in WHIP, first in fewest walks. The rotation alone has a 3.13.

And the list of who isn’t pitching is long. Sam Kelly, last year’s only twenty-game winner, was 5-0 with a 1.50 in seven starts when he got hurt on May 8. Biceps tendinitis, about three months. T.J. Larson was 3-0 with a 2.66 when his shoulder went in April. Jon Morales broke a bone in his elbow running the bases on April 5 and is expected to miss about six months. Jaden Ruchti, signed in April, has already spent 42 days on the list.

“This year is brutal,” Josh wrote, after Kelly.

Here’s the part I can’t get over. Remember Greg Tarver? On Opening Day, Jay went digging through the record books and figured Tarver might hold the league record for days spent injured, 2,109 of them. Josh signed him anyway, at 38.

Greg Tarver has pitched in 15 games. He has a 1.21 earned run average and has walked one batter in 22⅓ innings. The staff around him keeps losing men to the injured list, and the one pitcher with the reputation keeps taking the ball.

Montreal is 26-22, second in the Sapphire, five back of Somerville. Étienne Charbonneau, who spent years writing about a drought that ended in 2030, put it in *La Presse Sportive*: “This city spent twenty years learning to love a thing that was not there. The harder discipline, it turns out, is loving one that is.”

13.

The defending champions are 22-26, and the reason is right there in the box score.

Jay’s Dynamite have drawn 119 walks, 31st of 32 teams. They have struck out 464 times, also 31st. The lineup hits the ball hard when it hits it, third in the league with 66 home runs, but it doesn’t control the strike zone and its on-base percentage is .306. Jared Pink is hitting .193 with 10 home runs, which, as we’ve established, is fashionable this year.

Denver went 10-2 from April 26 through May 9. Then it went 3-9.

The two signings Jay made in the winter both worked. Emilio Della Mea is hitting .308 with a .557 slugging percentage. And Marty Kilby, the man Jay signed “hoping to join the injury party,” has made all ten of his starts, has a 1.87 earned run average, and has walked eight men in 53 innings. So much for the party.

The problem is the $111 million tied up in Kevin Porter, Morgan Alison, Victor Baez and Ivan Sanchez, who have played 129 games between them. And Jason Hopkins, the reliever Denver sold to Big Horn in December for a tenth-round pick, has a 2.63 there.

Denver is one game out of a playoff spot, with 114 to play, and Denver has won six championships.

14.

This past winter, seven players signed for $100 million or more. Here’s how the seven are doing.

Arturo Rivera, Mexico City, $126 million: 8-0, 2.09, a 0.86 WHIP, eight wins in nine starts. He’s 34. He’s the best of the seven by a distance.

Travis Sudduth, Oahu, $204 million: 4-1, 2.15, 40 strikeouts in eight starts, not a home run allowed. He’s been on the injured list since May 9.

Jong-su Im, Montreal, $109 million: 5-3, 3.28, playing through a knock.

Freddy Echeverria, Kansas City, $192 million: 4-2, 3.94.

Dustin Potter, San Juan, $152 million: 5-2, 4.05, 67 strikeouts in 11 starts.

Mike Boller, San Juan, $117 million: .275 at catcher. On April 18, against Virginia, the 33-year-old catcher hit for the cycle in a 13-2 win, triple and all.

Eli Bernal, Memphis, $140 million: .247 with six home runs.

And then there’s the man from last time. Justin Roush, the most valuable player of the championship series, signed with Southland for $1.8 million. He played in four of Southland’s first six games and went 4-for-12. He hasn’t played since April 4, and he’s on the injured list.

So he did come to the plate in April, in games nobody was watching. On April 3 he hit a home run.

15.

Larry’s Mexico City Luchadores are 30-18 and in first place in the Ruby, and they did it with Rivera, Metcalf and four relief pitchers.

The Mexico City bullpen has a 2.54 earned run average, the best in baseball. Steve Parker has 14 saves and has not allowed an earned run all season. John Shephard has a 0.95 across 38 innings. Ed Waterman is at 1.88 and Harry Smith at 2.25. None of the four makes more than $4.6 million.

Even with Rivera in it, the rotation has a 4.36, 20th in the league, and Lorenzo Valenzuela, who owns four Great Gloves, is hitting .180. Ximena Ocampo Ruvalcaba of *Récord Ciudad* has been careful to note that four relievers can carry a club through May and that there’s no history of four relievers carrying one through September. The Luchadores are 14-7 against teams over .500, though, and nobody else in the Ruby is close to that.

16.

Daryl’s Myrtle Beach Mermen have the best offense in baseball. They’re first in runs, first in batting average, first in on-base percentage, first in slugging and first in OPS, all five, out of 32 clubs. They’ve scored 262 runs. Their payroll is in the bottom third of the league.

Jalen Wiggins is hitting .329. Trent Erickson, 23, league minimum, is hitting .323. Jesse Hile, 24, league minimum, is hitting .321 and slugging .598. Israel Flores, the $81 million man from March, is at .286 with 34 runs batted in. Mark Cobb, back from Denver, is at .294. Four different Mermen have won player of the week.

And Chris Breuninger, who makes $4.1 million, is 5-2 with a 1.40 earned run average and has allowed one home run in 51 innings.

The Mermen are 28-20, two games behind Mexico City. They were picked to go 81-81. Their plus-73 is the best run differential in baseball. The difference between them and Mexico City, basically, is that Mexico City is 8-4 in one-run games and Myrtle Beach is 5-5.

On May 4, at home, the Mermen no-hit Vancouver, 3-0. Nate McFerrin went 6⅓ innings, Steven Alexander got the next five outs, and Kenny Cripps got the last three. Twenty-eight Vandals came to the plate. Not one walked, the defense didn’t make an error, and the only man who reached base was hit by a pitch. It’s the only no-hitter in the league this year, and it came against the lineup that strikes out less than anybody in baseball.

Daryl also had the first pick in the draft, and used it on a center fielder named Erik Fisher. Oahu, picking second, took a pitcher named Oliver Zimmer.

17.

Somebody is going to ask about strikeouts, so let’s do strikeouts.

Al Charles of San Diego has 111 of them, the most in the league by 16. He’s 25, making $3.9 million, and he’s on pace for about 375. The league record is 375, by Nick Henson of Philadelphia in 2017.

On May 21, Charles struck out 17 Milwaukee Mobsters in 8⅔ innings. That’s the most patient lineup in baseball, the one that leads the league in walks. He walked two of them.

Phil Church of Virginia is second with 95. Garrett Hoenie of Philadelphia is third with 84, and his WHIP is 0.79, the best of any regular starter in the league. Adam Bickler of Vancouver is fourth with 83, and he’s 2-6.

And then there’s Big Horn, which has done it the other way. Johnny’s staff has struck out 348 batters, the fewest in the league. It has also walked 115, second-fewest, and its WHIP of 1.16 is second-best in baseball. Nobody gets a free base, and nobody misses a bat, and Big Horn is 27-21. Miguel Sanchez, signed for one year and $10.1 million, is 5-1 with a 2.57. Nick Williams is 7-2. Bill Raymond has 12 home runs and 39 runs batted in, and he’s 28, and he’s still the best player in the division.

18.

Around the Fire Conference.

Huron won its first game 7-0 at Southland and didn’t lose until April 4. On April 14, Daniel’s Herons were 13-2. Since then they’re 15-18. They’ve stolen 86 bases, the most in baseball, with five men already in double figures. Lorraine Petrosky of the *Huron Daily Beacon* reminded everyone that the 2017 club won 115 games and no title, and the 2020 club won 84 and won the whole thing.

Oklahoma City is 19-8 at home and 8-13 on the road, the widest split of any club over .500, and nobody can explain it. Rees’s Outlaws are 27-21. Jeremy Porten has the best OPS in baseball. Brian Lee has a 1.70. “The road record is 8-13,” wrote Marguerite Yoo of *The Oklahoman Sports Desk*. “Watch that.”

Oahu is 25-23, which after 58-104 and 64-98 is about the most interesting record in the Ruby. Adam Bills, 24, league minimum, has 12 of the club’s 43 home runs and 41 runs batted in. Zeus Lunari, 32 years in the chair, was asked in May whether it was real. “Too early to trust it,” he said. “Older roster, not a lot of core leadership pieces or depth. Happy with where we are, but expecting trouble once we leave divisional play.” Since the schedule opened up, Oahu is 5-7. Christian Loredo, 37, came back from 36 days on the injured list and is hitting .339.

Virginia lost its first six games and was 12-20 on May 4. Since then Kaden’s Rebels have gone 11-5 and they’re 23-25, two games out. We’ve seen this movie. Phil Church is the reason, and Chris Schmotzer is hitting .322 with 64 hits.

San Juan has the second-most runs in baseball, 242, and is 23-25, because the pitchers keep getting hurt. Chuck put it plainly: “I literally don’t have enough healthy 40-man pitchers to make up a 14 man staff.” Frank Mildner has 13 home runs and a .601 slugging percentage at the league minimum.

Southland has a starting rotation with a 6.62 earned run average, the worst in the league by nearly two-thirds of a run, on a $72.4 million payroll, the lowest in the league. Anthony’s Masked Bandits are 20-28. Emmanuel Martinez is 7-1, which is seven of the club’s 20 wins. And the farm is winning at every level that has opened, which Gerald Mabry of the *Southland Tribune* says has never happened in the history of the franchise under any of its names.

Phoenix has scored 202 runs and allowed 194 and is 21-27. Robby Morales, a one-year signing in January, is 6-0 with a 2.40. Brendan’s Firebirds are 5-8 in one-run games and 2-4 in extra innings, and that’s the season.

Vancouver has struck out 340 times, the fewest of any lineup in baseball, and has scored 181 runs, 28th. Ben’s Vandals put the ball in play better than anybody and it keeps landing in gloves. They’re 20-28.

San Diego, apart from Charles, has scored 176 runs, 29th in the league, and has a lineup of veterans hitting around .200. Alex’s Seals are 21-27. Their bullpen has blown two saves all year, the fewest in baseball.

Memphis is 14-34, tied for the worst record in the league. Eric’s Blues have one bright line: Vicente Chavez, signed in January for $7 million a year, is hitting .312 with 12 home runs.

19.

Around the Ice Conference.

Fort Collins has hit 40 home runs, tied with Phoenix for the fewest in the league, and has stolen 10 bases, the fewest outright. Tim’s Roosters are 30-18, two back of Galveston. They walk, they get on base at the fourth-best rate in baseball, and their pitchers have allowed 38 home runs, the fewest anywhere. Bill Barker, last year’s reliever of the year, has 15 saves.

Cincinnati is 28-20, which is the best the franchise has looked this late in May since it played in Georgia. Chris’s Regents had nobody on the injured list on May 24, and the longest stint all year was 14 days in February. Their rotation ranks fifth, and Joe Duemler has 12 home runs. Wendell Barr of the *Cincinnati Register* is not ready to say anything more than that. The last postseason game in franchise history was 2009.

Philadelphia was 4-13 on April 17 after three straight sweeps. Connor’s Eagles have gone 21-10 since and are 25-23. They’re second in baseball with 70 home runs, spread across six men with six or more. Hoenie is 4-1 with a 2.12. The bullpen has blown 12 saves.

Boston is 23-25, on the playoff line, and 6-1 in extra innings. JP’s Beacons have blown 11 saves and converted 12. Edgar Tyler has 42 runs batted in, second in the league, on a $500,000 salary. Tyler Jackson, 24, has a 2.97 and 71 strikeouts.

Las Vegas starters have thrown 177 innings, the fewest in the league. The bullpen has thrown 261, the most, by 25. Eric’s High Rollers are 21-27. Don Fraker has a 1.25 earned run average and 69 strikeouts in 50⅓ innings, as a reliever, which tells you how often he’s been out there. Jeff Bass, 33, leads the league with 27 stolen bases.

New Orleans is the opposite. Mudcats starters have thrown 287 innings, the most in the league, and the bullpen 148, the fewest. Ryan’s club is 20-28. Joe Barnes has a 2.86 earned run average and is 2-4.

Tampa Bay is last in the league in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging and OPS. All four. Leo’s Cannons are 19-29. Justin Davis, the five-year, $116 million starter Leo signed in January, is 6-2 with a 2.81, and he has six of the club’s 19 wins. “Justin Davis already calling for a players only meeting,” Leo wrote, “not used to all the losing yet.” The Cannons also did something new this winter: they paid $12 million in cash to Cincinnati and Denver for draft picks. For years they’d been the club selling cash.

New York has scored 159 runs, the fewest in the league. JG’s Empire is 19-29. Here’s a strange one. Travis Eaton, the 35-year-old New York is paying $40.8 million, hit 59 home runs for Toronto in 2021, the fifth-most anybody has ever hit in a season. Ron Stone, 33, led the league with 47 in 2026. This year Eaton has three. The New York rotation has a 3.35 earned run average, second-best in baseball, in front of a bullpen at 5.42, second-worst. Chris Colvin, 22, has a 2.37.

20.

The bottom.

Spokane and Memphis are both 14-34. Spokane’s pitchers have walked 191 batters, the most in baseball. Spokane’s hitters have drawn 104, the fewest. That’s both ends of the strike zone, and both are the worst in the league.

Before the season, the projections had Sly’s Sasquatches at 49-113. Sly took it about the way you’d hope. “Damn predicted 49 wins,” he wrote, “We will end up at least 60 lol.”

Fourteen and thirty-four is a pace for 47. To get to 60, Spokane has to go 46-68 the rest of the way. That’s a .404 clip. The Sasquatches have played .292 ball so far. Tyler Holman, a 2027 draft pick making the minimum, has a 2.98 earned run average and struck out 13 Southland hitters on May 23 in a 6-5 win. So it’s possible. It isn’t likely. Sly said at least 60, and he gets until October.

21.

The odds and ends.

The draft ran through the first week of the season, all 28 rounds and 896 picks. Seven clubs didn’t have a first-round pick: Baltimore, Boston, Big Horn, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, San Diego and Somerville. Chicago had five.

Rees, in the middle of all that, relaunched the Drunk Scouting Association, now a website, with prospect bios and player comparisons. Daniel was in favor. “If we used DSA,” he wrote from Huron, “id have a top 10 system most of the years I have controlled Huron.” Kaden found Virginia’s ranking and was relieved. “Let’s goooo,” he wrote, “not the worst system in the league.”

Chicago, which Mike projected before the season to draw 45,000 a game, has averaged 33,898 through the first two months, which is about where it was last year. Somerville, which Jay says has sold out for twenty years, leads the league at 44,445.

There were two cycles in the first two months, Luis Martinez of Toronto on April 10 and Mike Boller of San Juan on April 18, and one no-hitter, in Myrtle Beach.

22.

So what were the first two months?

Here’s the arithmetic I keep coming back to. Milwaukee and Rochester have outscored their opponents by 35 and 34 runs. One is tied for the best record in baseball and the other is under .500. Milwaukee is 11-2 in one-run games. Rochester is 1-9.

The best offense in baseball is in second place in its own division. The best pitching staff keeps losing its pitchers. The club with the biggest payroll is 22-26 and the club with the third-smallest is 31-17. The best hitter in baseball, by average, is on a losing team. The man leading the league in home runs is hitting .193.

None of it is settled. It’s 48 games. The one-run games will even out, and the pitchers in Montreal will come back, and somebody will take the Toronto job or they won’t.

But Dean Salvucci will keep doing what Dean Salvucci has always done. He’ll swing, and most of the time he’ll miss, and every so often he won’t, and when he doesn’t the ball won’t come back. He hit .187 once with 40 home runs. He’s on pace for 68 now. The record is 66.

He’s hitting .193.

See you later this summer.