On April 8 Astros manager Bo Porter pulled J.D. Martinez from the game after a fourth-inning at-bat. Afterward neither Porter nor Martinez divulged the intricacies of the yanking, though Martinez did offer a hint, according to Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle:

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James McDonald made his third start of the season on Monday night. It wasn't pretty. Although the Cardinals managed to run into two outs on the bases, McDonald exited after 1 2/3 innings, equalling the shortest start of his career. The quick trip to the showers came after a so-so start against the Diamondbacks and a strong season-opening effort versus the Cubs. 

Dizzying reversals of trends are nothing new for the Pirates' right-hander. Despite finishing the past two seasons with the same amount of innings and same ERA+, McDonald has been too inconsistent for comfort's sake. Take last season's odd tale of two halves. He looked on his way to a strong campaign after allowing 31 runs over 110 first-half innings. But something fell out of sort in the second half and caused McDonald to allow 54 runs over his final 61 innings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio folded in half and his ERA more than doubled.

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The Blue Jays are dealing with a tumultuous start to their season. R.A. Dickey and Josh Johnson have endured rough starts, Jose Bautista's biggest blast involved umpires, and, on Friday night, Jose Reyes suffered a severely sprained ankle. The injury will cost Reyes potentially the next three months and opens a spot on the roster for Munenori Kawasaki, who hit .192/.257/.202 last season for the Mariners. Everything that could go wrong is seemingly going wrong. But were there warning signs about the quality of the Jays' roster even before Reyes' injury?

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Remember that piece back in December about Coco Crisp's tendency to steal bases before the pitcher begins to comes home with the pitch? Last night another Athletics outfielder, Chris Young, paid homage against Joe Blanton. Here are some visuals. First Young when he starts to run compared to Blanton:

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Tuesday, like the night before it, featured an unusual sequence of called strikes. The weirdness happened during the ninth inning of the Brewers-Cubs game. Newly appointed Chicago closer Kyuji Fujikawa started his shift against Milwaukee outfielder Logan Schafer. After missing high with a fastball to begin the at-bat, Fujikawa recovered to throw three consecutive fastballs for called strikes en route to a leadoff strikeout. If only it were that simple.

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Last weekend the Twins and Orioles met in Baltimore for a three-game set. Of the various subplots to come from the series—including the O's losing two more one-run games—the one with the most long-term impact could be the continued struggles of Manny Machado and Aaron Hicks, two young, gifted players with the potential to have long, glamorous careers but who are currently playing below their expectations.

Although technically no longer a rookie, Machado remains the youngest everyday player in the American League. His play last season—as a 20-year-old inserted into a postseason race—obscured this fact, save for a rough postseason. However, Machado's 6-for-30 start to the new year is bringing it back into focus. He's almost unfathomably young and that makes him a difficult player to evaluate during times of extreme play. Think of it as the Mike Trout corollary: highly skilled youth are capable of what their numbers say they are until they aren't. 

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Angels ace Jered Weaver will miss at least the next four weeks after fracturing the elbow in his glove arm during his most recent start, Sunday night in Texas, according to ESPN.

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When the Padres claimed Eric Stults off waivers last May the expectations were low. The move, though documented in a Transactions Analysis column, received little-to-no thought at the time. Injuries had thinned San Diego's rotation to the point where Jeff Suppan made a few starts. A team in need of a warm body appeared to net a warm body and little else in Stults, who, in addition to a big-league ERA threatening 5.00, had career ERAs in Triple-A and Japan eclipsing the mark. Marrying pedestrian stuff with awful numbers is a set-up for a quick divorce.

Yet Stults' performance never prompted the Padres to consider an annulment. The journeyman southpaw compiled a 2.92 ERA and a 2.22 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 92 1/3 innings. Those are numbers not crafted only within the forgiving confines of Petco Park. In addition to pitching more innings on the road than at home, Stults also posted a better ERA, K/BB ratio, and batting average on balls in play while staying in hotels. Even a strained shoulder, which cost Stults close to two months of the season, did not stop him from posting a strong second half. Nor finishing with three consecutive quality starts to end the season—each consisting of exactly six innings and three earned runs.

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