Cause For Concern After Week One

Yankees fans are excited for Starlin Castro and Didi Gregorious, and rightfully so. While Didi is batting .333, with a home run, and a stolen base. Castro has arguably been the best hitter for the team so far this season, batting .450, with two home runs, eight RBI, two doubles, and two stolen bases.

By the way, the word "arguably" was added because of Brian McCann. McCann is hitting .467, with a home run, a double, and three walks.

Although I'm normally one to look at the positive things going on, I can't help but be concerned due to some players who started the season off poorly.

On the offensive side of things there's Jacoby Ellsbury, who is only hitting .217. Mind you, two of those hits were doubles, and one of them was a triple, so my concern level here isn't that high. That is not the case for Chase Headley, who has just one hit in 12 at bats.

To be honest, the offense as a whole is not worrisome. Are they going to keep up their current rate of seven runs per game? No. However, they are not going to struggle to score this season.

Giving up three runs in five innings is not awful, but allowing the other team to get 10 hits is, and that's what Luis Severino did on Friday against the Tigers. Now, to be fair, he did strike out 5 while walking nobody, so the start wasn't all bad. But I don't think I'm alone in expecting better out of Luis the next time around.

Nathan Eovaldi's performance the day before was worse. He also went five innings, and while he didn't give up many hits, Nathan did allow the Astros to score five earned runs. The strikeout to walk rate in that game, like with Severino, made things better (7 strikeouts to 0 walks). So will Nathan's ERA be 9.00 much longer? I doubt it. But I'll be watching his next start earnestly.

Six earned runs, off of eight hits, in five innings. Not what you'd expect out of your #2 starter, is it? Like Luis and Nathan, Michael Pineda's five strikeouts without a walk is great, but he's got to limit the hard contact. In fact, three of those hard hit balls by Houston last Wednesday went over the fence for home runs. Big Mike has to be better than that.

"Do not make me angry."

CC Sabathia was the only pitcher to toss six innings in his first start, throwing those six innings against the Tigers on Saturday. And he was pretty good. giving up three earned runs off of just four hits. That's nice and all, but CC walked four batters while only striking out three. He's not out of the woods yet.

Masahiro Tanaka had the best start for the Yankees in their first week, giving up just two earned runs in 5.2 innings of work. And I'm cool with him giving up just four hits and a walk, too. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I expect a little more out of the team's #1 starter.

The concern doesn't stop with the starting pitching, either. Dellin Betances hasn't given up an earned run yet this season, but he has allowed two hits and walked two in three appearances, Oh, they weren't earned, but three runs have scored while he was on the mound, and that is certainly not what I expect to see from Dellin this season.

Week two is going to be very interesting as I look for a number of players on the team to improve.