The Thursday Takeaway
When the Giants last finished a season with a rotation ERA north of 4.00 and outside of the league’s top 10, the year was 2008, Tim Lincecum was in his first full season, and the organization had not yet won its first world championship in San Francisco. If that streak is to live on through 2013, however, Bruce Bochy’s starting five already has work to do.

Following Thursday’s 7-2 loss to the Brewers, in which Matt Cain was charged with seven earned runs over six innings of work and saw his ERA rise to 7.15, the Giants’ rotation ERA stands at 5.07. Barry Zito, who did not allow an earned run in either of his first two starts, coughed up nine in 2 2/3 frames in the series opener, bringing his ERA for the season to 4.86. Ryan Vogelsong’s seven-inning, three-run effort in the middle match pared his ERA down to 5.89. Tim Lincecum, who did not pitch at Miller Park, sports a 5.63 mark. Put that all together, and, were it not for Madison Bumgarner’s 1.77 ERA, the quintet’s aggregate figure would shoot up to 5.99, and the team’s record might be well south of 9-7.

The Wednesday Takeaway
Game two of three between the Tigers and Mariners began with a strikeout—by Felix Hernandez of Austin Jackson. Few first at-bats have ever proven to be a better harbinger of the dozens still to come.

By the time Brayan Pena endured a collision with Justin Smoak to secure the final out in the bottom of the 14^th inning, the teams had combined to strike out 40 times, three shy of the major-league record. The Angels and Athletics teamed up to set that record on July 9, 1971, in a 20-inning contest that featured a whole lot of whiffs and only one run. Given the 37 additional at-bats that they were afforded, the Tigers and Mariners would likely have smashed it. 

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The Tuesday Takeaway
What happens when two teams play a baseball game 30 minutes after the conclusion of another baseball game, in which neither starter recorded a sixth-inning out? What if both of those games are played in freezing conditions, just hours after snow was cleared off the playing surface, and with temperatures dropping rapidly as the nightcap wears on? Oh, and just for good measure, what if, after burning through their bullpens in the matinee, both managers are forced to turn to their relief corps in the fifth inning of game two?

What happens is a four-hour-and-19-minute-long mess, in which the teams combine for 17 runs, 25 hits, and five errors. Thirteen pitchers are asked to throw 391 total pitches. The winning team’s star All-Star left fielder calls it “the best worst night ever.” The home team’s mascot pulls double duty after assisting the grounds crew. And one of the visiting team’s beat writers begins to lose his mind while wondering why viewers are still tuned in to a game they are not being paid to watch. 

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The Monday Takeaway
Fans of efficient pitching were treated to the epitome of their preferred craft last night, when Cliff Lee and Bronson Arroyo went head-to-head in game one of a three-game series between the Phillies and Reds. The control artists both came into the evening with sub-5.4 percent walk rates since the beginning of the 2009 season, ranking among the league’s 15 stingiest qualifying starters over that span, and even in the bandbox that is Great American Ball Park, they did not disappoint.

For six swift innings, Lee and Arroyo traded zeros, the former aided by an incredible catch by center fielder Ben Revere, the latter by a moderately generous strike zone enforced by home-plate umpire Jim Joyce. Lee needed only 67 pitches to record his first 18 outs; Arroyo fired 70. And, as expected, to that point in the ballgame, neither of them issued a walk.

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The Weekend Takeaway
B.J. Upton is 7-for-43. Jason Heyward is 4-for-39. Brandon Beachy, Freddie Freeman, Brian McCann, and Jonny Venters are on the disabled list. And Kris Medlen, whose stunning 120-to-23 K:BB effort last summer deflected questions about Atlanta’s rotation depth, issued six walks and notched only four strikeouts in his first two starts of the year.

So, the Braves are sinking, watching their playoff odds erode as the Nationals fortify an early National League East lead, right? Not exactly.

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The Thursday Takeaway

Carlos Quentin called it “unfortunate.” Don Mattingly called it “ridiculous.” It was the result of the 88^th pitch of Zack Greinke’s start, a 3-2 offering in a 2-1 game, which tailed inside into Quentin’s upper arm, stirring the season’s first benches-clearing brawl.

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The Wednesday Takeaway
Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington spent the past offseason continuing a team-wide retooling plan that he put in motion last summer, with the mega-trade that sent Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, and Adrian Gonzalez to the Dodgers. Part of the plan involved overhauling a porous bullpen, which blew an American League-high 22 saves in 2012 under manager Bobby Valentine, so that first-year skipper John Farrell could feel confident in the relief corps’ ability to hold late leads.

Cherington brought in former Ranger Koji Uehara in free agency and obtained Joel Hanrahan from the Pirates in a late-December swap, adding those two northpaws to a mix that already included a healthy Andrew Bailey and an under-the-radar weapon in Junichi Tazawa, who quietly posted a 45-to-5 K:BB last year. When starter Ryan Dempster, another newcomer, needed 93 pitches to complete five innings yesterday, Farrell turned to Uehara, Tazawa, and Bailey, and watched them deliver a hitless inning each, with five combined strikeouts.

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The Tuesday Takeaway
From control issues to injuries, Brandon Morrow has endured plenty of stumbles in in his young major-league career, but his ability to miss bats has seldom wavered. Armed with a mid-90s fastball and a vicious slider, the 28-year-old right-hander entered Tuesday’s date with the Tigers coming off of a strong debut against the Indians, in which he fanned eight batters in six innings while permitting only one run.

Then, this happened:

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The Monday Takeaway
For the first six innings, Monday’s series opener between the Reds and Cardinals was a tightly contested, 4-2 affair, in which the difference was a pair of fly-ball fielding errors by Cincinnati’s right fielder-turned-center fielder Shin-Soo Choo. The 30-year-old Choo “almost died” of embarrassment from the misplays that put the home team on top two-thirds of the way through the contest. Then, the Reds’ bats awakened, and a meltdown from the Cardinals bullpen helped them to bring their leadoff man back to life.

The Reds got one run back off of St. Louis starter Jaime Garcia in the top of the seventh inning, during which Choo chipped in a one-out single that advanced Ryan Hanigan into scoring position. A double by Chris Heisey plated Hanigan to narrow the margin to 4-3, and while lefty specialist Randy Choate finished off the frame for the Cardinals without allowing any further damage, his bullpen mates weren’t so fortunate.

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The Weekend Takeaway
When the Mets decided during the offseason to trade R.A. Dickey, and eventually shipped him to the Blue Jays, the 38-year-old knuckleballer became the first defending Cy Young Award winner to be traded since Roger Clemens went from the Jays to the Yankees following the 1998 season. And, because Dickey not only switched leagues in the deal, but also went specifically to Toronto—which was scheduled to play Cleveland in the first series of the regular season, before the Indians’ set with the Rays—the rare trade set the stage for something unique.

As soon as first-year Indians manager Terry Francona named Justin Masterson his Opening Day starter, the former Red Sox prospect was dealt a rather intimidating early-season schedule: His first start, on Opening Day, would be a duel with Dickey; his second, five days later, would pit him against the American League’s reigning Cy Young Award winner, David Price.

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The Thursday Takeaway
Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik spent most of the offseason searching for power bats that could supply a jolt to his lineup, which ranked dead last in the league with a 665 OPS in 2012. Along the way, he brought back Michael Morse—whom he had shipped out for Ryan Langerhans in 2009—from the Nationals. And, though most preferred Washington’s end of that three-way deal at the time, four days into the regular season, Zduriencik is looking mighty shrewd.

The first Mariner to four home runs last year was Jesus Montero, who reached that benchmark in the team’s 24^th game. Morse, who hit 31 homers in 575 plate appearances for the Nationals in 2011 and nine in 66 trips to the box this spring, needed one-sixth that many, averaging a long ball per game in the opening series, which ended in a 2-2 split.

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The Wednesday Takeaway
The fourth day of regular-season play brought the year’s first edition of #weirdbaseball, courtesy of the Cardinals and Diamondbacks, who endured 16 innings over five hours and 32 minutes, the longest game in the history of Chase Field.

The scoring began with a first-inning solo home run by Gerardo Parra and ended with a walk-off single by Cliff Pennington. The Cardinals led on three occasions, including a 4-1 advantage in the third, a 7-5 edge in the sixth, an 8-7 margin in the eighth, and a 9-8 lead in the 12^th. Each time, the Diamondbacks—who countered with a four-spot in the fifth, two runs in the sixth, and one each in the eighth and 12^th—crawled back, forcing both managers to empty their bullpens, until only Heath Bell remained in Arizona’s. Along the way, the staffs combined to throw 513 pitches, of which relievers delivered 346.

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