From Last Night:

• R.A. Dickey, David Price, Cole Hamels, Matt Cain, and Stephen Strasburg all get hit hard in losing efforts
• Will Middlebrooks hits 3 HR in 13-0 thumping of the Jays
• Dayan Viciedo walks off on Kameron Loe in the 10 inning as the White Sox beat the Mariners
• Marlon Byrd wins it for the Mets in the bottom of the 9th against the Marlins
• The Twins silence Chris Davis and beat the O’s
• Rockies beat the Friars 9-1, improve to 5-1 on the season
• Darvish and Weaver surrender runs early in Arlington

What I’m Watching Today:

• The Reds and Cards square off in an early NL Central showdown (4p Eastern)
• Matt Harvey faces Roy Halladay in a battle of pitchers going in opposite directions (7p Eastern)
• The Marlins play their first home game after the winter firesale against Paul Maholm and the Braves (7p Eastern)

The Big Question:

• Was Halladay’s weird outing last week a sign of things to come or blip on the road back to dominance?

Sunday was not a good day for the College of Aces as Dickey, Price, Hamels, Cain, and Straburg all gave up 6 or more earned runs in relatively short outings. As I’m writing this, Darvish and Weaver have given up five runs between them in just two innings, so either one of them could join the party. Sabathia shut down the Tigers and Verlander was good against the Yankees save for one bad pitch. It’s hard to imagine that on a day in which so many of baseball’s best starters took to the hill that so few good pitching performances occurred. I toyed around with the idea of developing an AceStart% statistic that measured what percentage of aces pitched on a given day, and I would guess that Sunday would be the highest non-Opening Day of the season as far as that goes, but it sure didn’t look like it. 148 runs were scored in the 14 games that are final at this point. It was not the day of great pitching I hoped for, but hey, that’s what makes baseball great. On any given day, any team can make a great pitcher look silly.

In a shocking turn of events, however, it was not Chris Davis who won New English D’s “Race to 1.0 WAR,” but rather the A’s shortstop, Jed Lowrie. Mr. Lowrie has 30 plate appearances in his team’s first 7 games and has 3 HR and a .500/.567/1.000 line to go with his .645 wOBA and 326 wRC+. If you had Jed Lowrie in the first to 1.0 WAR pool, come claim your prize. It’s a unicorn. Lowrie, at this moment, is on pace for 23.1 WAR. That would be a record, if you’re curious, topping Babe Ruth‘s 1923 season (.393/.545/.764) by a full 8 wins. Lowrie is a good player, but I’m willing to take the under on that one.