How they rank: April 14

It’s April, which means small sample sizes and skewed stats. Good. Here’s some of the players for whom it’s been the cruelest month (stats through Tuesday’s games):

• 1. Los Angeles Dodgers: David Price opted out of 2020. The Dodgers might be wishing he’d opt out of 2021. He’s pitched 4.2 innings over three appearances and allowed three of the 10 home runs the Dodgers have thrown, good for a 9.64 ERA. All for the bargain price of $32 million.
• 2. San Diego: Outfielder Tommy Pham says he’s lucky to be playing after being stabbed in the back in the parking lot of a strip club last offseason. Pham needed 200 stitches to close the wound. But he’s batting .128 this season without an extra-base hit in 39 at-bats.
• 3. Boston: Josh Taylor’s last appearance was scoreless, which brought his ERA down from 18.00 to 14.73. He’s allowed 10 hits in 3.2 innings, thanks to a .588 average on balls in play. Lucky in 2021 he’s not.
• 4. Houston: If the Astros are stealing signs again, someone should share with catcher Martin Maldonado. He’s batting .091 (3-for-33) without an extra-base hit and with 16 strikeouts in 33 at-bats.
• 5. Cincinnati: Reliever Amir Garrett has thrown two home runs in three innings, allowed five hits, walked four and has a 15.00 ERA. Somehow he has two saves in three appearances.
• 6. Los Angeles Angels: Jose Quintana was hurt for most of 2020, which maybe cost the Angels the $8 million they spent to sign him. Quintana hasn’t had an ERA lower than 4.00 since 2016, and he’s not starting 2021 as if he’s going to end that streak. In his first two starts, Quintana has lasted just five innings, given up 10 hits, seven walks and nine earned runs. His ERA is 16.20, which is a long way from single digits, let alone 4.00.
• 7. San Francisco: Matt Wisler has made five appearances for the Giants, two of them scoreless. In the other three, he’s lost, blown a save, and blown a lead so big it didn’t count as a blown save. It all adds up to a 23.14 ERA in 2.1 innings.
• 8. Minnesota: Miguel Sano once said he wanted to hit 40 home runs, knock in 100 runs and win a Gold Glove. Given that he’s batting .086 with a homer and 16 strikeouts in 35 at-bats, he’s on pace to fan 640 times for those 40 homers. And the Gold Glove seems out, too.
• 9. Milwaukee: Keston Hiura led NL batters with 85 strikeouts in 246 plate appearances in 2020, and he’s giving every indication he might do so again in 2021. He’s fanned 14 times in 36 plate appearances. But if he doesn’t hit better than .118 or slug better than the .235 he’s started 2021 with, he might not stay in the lineup long enough to lead the league in anything. Except disappointment.
• 10. Chicago White Sox: Reliever Matt Foster gave up seven earned runs last year in 28.2 innings good for a 2.20 ERA. He’s given up that many already in 2021, thanks to the five he gave up in one appearance last Wednesday in Seattle. The seven earned runs in 3 innings he’s given up in 2021 are good for a 21.00 ERA.
• 11. St. Louis: It only took two starts for Daniel Ponce de Leon to be moved to the bullpen. In the second he got four outs, threw two homers and gave up seven runs. In his first appearance out of the bullpen he gave up two more runs, and his ERA is 12.27 with seven walks and three strikeouts in 7.1 innings. The next move will be to the alternate training site.
• 12. New York Yankees: Jay Bruce started 4-for-30 in 2021, which probably didn’t surprise the Mariners, Mets or Phillies. Those are the three teams he’s played for since the start of 2018 and for whom he hit .213, which includes just 76 singles in his last 755 at-bats (42 homers, three triples, 40 doubles).
• 13. Cleveland: The Indians farmed first baseman Bobby Bradley, who batted .303 with a .951 OPS this spring, because he had an option left and Jake Bauers didn’t. The Indians didn’t want to risk losing Bauers, a perennial disappointment with a career .680 OPS. They shouldn’t have been so concerned. Bauers has started 2021 1-for-16, and maybe it will soon dawn on the Indians that losing Bauers on waivers might just be a good thing.
• 14. Toronto: Rowdy Tellez broke an 0-for-22 skid to start the season with a single to center field. In the dugout, Valdimir Guerrero Jr. called for the ball as a memento. Tellez homered for his second hit the next night, making him 2-for-29 and raising his average to .069. No word on whether he wished Guerrero luck on getting that ball back.
• 15. Philadelphia: The Phillies farmed Odubel Herrera to platoon Adam Haseley and Roman Quinn in center field. Haseley is batting .190, Quinn .059. Neither has an extra-base hit and Quinn the only walk between the two. Combined they’re 5-for-38, which is a .132 average — when you round up.
• 16. N.Y. Mets: Contract extension talks with outfielder Michael Conforto aren’t going any better than Conforto’s season. His start, abbreviated by the cancellation of the Nationals series, is an un-Conforto like .130 average, two walks, eight strikeouts and one extra-base hit in 23 at-bats. His biggest contribution to the Mets’ season hasn’t been with his bat but his elbow pad, when he turned what should have been a called third strike into a game-winning hit by pitch.
• 17. Atlanta: Marcell Ozuna homered at a 40-plus pace in the shortened 2020 season, then reupped with the Braves for $65 million over four years. He’s on a 2021 pace that would leave him short of 40 extra-base hits. Ozuna is batting .200 and went without an extra-base hit in his first 36 at-bats before he homered on Tuesday. He’s fanned 15 times in 46 plate appearances.
• 18. Kansas City: Jorge Soler slugged 48 homers in 2019, more than half his career total of 95 accumulated in parts of eight seasons. He’s started 2021 looking as if he’ll be lucky to get 48 hits — he’s batting .138 with 16 strikeouts in 37 plate appearances.
• 19. Tampa Bay: No reason to worry about bad spring training stats, right? So what if Brandon Lowe batted .179 with one double in 45 plate appearances this spring. That doesn’t count. But the first 11 games do, and Lowe is hitting .194 with two doubles in 43 plate appearances. Its got to end soon, right, for a player with an .839 career OPS?
• 20. Seattle: I don’t want to say rookie Taylor Trammell needs to make more contact, but he’s batting .417 when he does and .156 in all. He’s fanned in half his plate appearances — 20 of 40. When Trammell bats, one of the three true outcomes is a lot truer than the other two.
• 21. Miami: The Marlins are carrying two Rule 5 picks in their bullpen — Zach Pop and Paul Campbell — and they’ve pitched like it. Pop and Campbell have allowed seven earned runs in a combined five innings, good for a 12.60 ERA. But the Marlins paid Anthony Bass $5 million to be their closer, and he’s pitched like a Rule 5 pick. He’s 0-2 with a 13.50 ERA. You can see why manager Don Mattingly’s choices are limited.
• 22. Baltimore: The Orioles lost their double play combination from 2020 so they signed free agent shortstop Freddy Galvis and moved third baseman Rio Ruiz to second. Galvis is batting .162, and of the two, he’s the hot one. Ruiz is at .125. Combined, Galvis and Ruiz are 10-for-69, batting .145, have one double, one homer, eight walks and 26 strikeouts. Where have you gone Andrew Velazquez?
• 23. Chicago Cubs: Anthony Rizzo halted contract extension talks with the Cubs before the season started. Wise move. Having started 6-for-37 with a .543 OPS, he’s not exactly in a strong bargaining position.
• 24. Oakland: Elvis Andrus doubled in his first A’s at-bat, then wen 0-for-his-next-24. He ended that skid and hit in four straight games to bring his average all the way up to .119.
• 25. Detroit: Tweets that didn’t age well department: “Very different looking Jose Urena today so far. 11 pitches, 9 strikes,” tweeted out a Tigers beat writer on Sunday after a 1-2-3 first inning. Four innings later, Urena looked like … Jose Urena. He walked five in 4.2 innings to give him nine in 7.2 innings to go with an 8.22 ERA in two starts. So much for trusting your stuff.
• 26. Washington: Stephen Strasburg complained on Tuesday about a TV camera in the team’s tunnel which, according to mlb.com, showed him “rubbing the area between his neck and right shoulder.” “There’s got to be some sort of safe place in the stadium,” said Strasburg. It certainly wasn’t the mound, where he was pelted for eight hits and eight runs in four innings, raising his ERA to 6.00.
• 27. Arizona: Remember when Madison Bumgarner ended 2020 with 10 scoreless innings (four hits, one walk, 11 Ks) over two starts which made his 6.48 ERA in his Diamondback debut season seem an aberration? Apparently not. He’s made three starts in 2021, and been hit hard in each. His ERA is 11.20, and he’s allowed 22 hits and eight walks in 13.2 innings. Good news is the D’backs have the rest of this season and the next three of a five-year, $85 million contract to figure out what’s wrong. Oh wait. That’s not such good news.
• 28. Colorado: Good luck to the guy replacing Nolan Arenado. For seven of the Rockies’ 11 games (eight of them losses), that’s been Josh Fuentes. He’s hitting .189 with 2 extra-base hits in 37 at-bats. Think Rockies’ fans are impatient? No more so than Fuentes at bat. He’s fanned 11 times and walked not even once.
• 29. Texas: Ronald Guzman starts the season 1-for-16, not totally out of character for a player with a .227 career average. It gets worse. The Rangers start Guzman, a first baseman, in left field, while they DH an outfielder (David Dahl). Guzman twists a knee while stumbling after a pop fly and his season might be over. Not to worry, though. The oft-injured Dahl feels fine.
• 30. Pittsburgh: Gregory Polanco never fails to disappoint, even in a free-agent year. Coming off a .153 2020, he’s picked right up. Polanco is batting .138 with one extra-base hit in 29 at-bats, and when he departs, it won’t be because the Pirates are frugal. Which they are.