Welcome back to baseball, where the snow is mostly gone, the dugouts still smell like last May, and somebody's dad is already arguing with an umpire who teaches civics. We are one week in, the bats are cold, the gloves are colder, and the standings have already produced one team that is making the rest of Class C look like a slow pitch beer league.
Let's get into it.
Monmouth is currently a baseball cheat code.
Two games. Thirty seven runs scored. Zero runs allowed. Two shutouts. That is not a typo, that is a Class C South box score that looks like it was generated by somebody who does not know how baseball works.
PIR has them sitting at 47.1, which is the highest mark in the entire state across all four classes. Their run differential is plus 37. The next closest team scoring at that pace plays in the 8U town league. The thing about a Power Index this high in Week 1 is that the schedule will absolutely come for them, and we will find out very quickly whether Monmouth is the real deal or just enjoying a soft opener. Right now though, you have to tip your cap. Or your batting helmet. Or whatever it is the Mustangs are wearing.
Bangor is the only team that has played three games.
Everybody else in Class A is still trying to find their cleats. Bangor is 3-0, scoring 15.3 runs per game, allowing 2.3, with one shutout already on the books. PIR has them at 41.3, third overall in the state and first in Class A North.
Three games in April in Maine is a small miracle. Three wins in those three games is a bigger one. They beat Lewiston on Friday and the run line was not close. We will see how the Rams hold up once Brewer, Hampden Academy, and Skowhegan all start filing into the schedule, but for now, Bangor is doing the only thing you can do in Week 1, which is win the games in front of you.
Greely, Wells, Telstar, and Oxford Hills round out the early top tier.
Greely is 2-0 in Class B South with a PIR of 41.9. Wells is 2-0 with a PIR of 37.6 and a microscopic 0.5 runs allowed per game, which means somebody on that staff is throwing aspirin tablets in 45 degree weather. Telstar in D South is 2-0 with a shutout. Oxford Hills is 2-0 in A North.
Down a tier, Ellsworth opened with a 33 run game. We do not know what the scoreboard operator was doing in the third inning of that one. We hope they are okay.
Now about Washington Academy. The baseball one. Easy down.
If you read our softball recap, you saw the Raiders posting actual zeros across the board. The baseball Raiders are also 2-0, also off to a real nice start, with a PIR of 32.7 and one shutout in the books. They have given up three runs total. That is not the softball headline, but it is a top eleven Power Rating and a perfect record, and Mount View can confirm the bats are awake.
Two Washington Academy programs in the top fifteen statewide in Week 1. The bus rides into Cherryfield are about to get fun.
A note on predictions.
Our GameIQ engine is currently locked in for basketball, hockey, and soccer, and it is about to come online for baseball and softball as well. Right now, you are looking at standings, Power Index, run differential, shutouts, and DSI. In the next week or two, every Slate page will start showing projected scores, win probability, and spread for every game on the board. The Python engine has been backtested on prior seasons. We are doing one more pass to make sure the cold weather noise of Week 1 does not poison the cold start. Stay tuned.
DSI, in case you are new here, is our Depth of Schedule Index. It is a nine layer rating of how hard your schedule actually is, not just how many wins your opponents have. A 2-0 record against two state title contenders is not the same as a 2-0 record against two teams who will lose their conference opener. DSI sees the difference. It will start showing up next to standings as the season fills in. If you want plain English definitions of every metric on the site, the glossary has them.
What to watch this week.
Monmouth at Boothbay was already in the books to open their week. The Mustangs head into a stretch where the schedule density picks up. Bangor will get a real test once the A North round robin starts. Wells continues to be a problem in B South. And the entire Class C field is going to spend the next month trying to figure out if Monmouth is mortal.
The serious part, briefly. The kid who took a called third strike on Friday with the bases loaded is in our database. So is the kid who pinch ran in the seventh and got picked off. So is the freshman who threw two innings of mop up. Every name on every roster, every at bat, every pitch we can record. The flashy ones get the headlines. Everybody else gets the same database row, same font, same respect.
Now go cook.