Question of the week: are you optimistic?

[Brock Beauchamp]

How you feelin' about this team right now?

[John_Havok]

Can't really be helped where they are in the standings given their injuries. There's only so much depth you can have before bending turns into breaking. So far, they've bent, but not broke which is encouraging. 

A decent 4 or 5 game winning streak or a winning 6-of-7 would help put the casuals at ease for sure. 

Are they below expectations? Sure. But the reality is, every team in the league has a 20 game stretch where they go 8-12 or 7-13 regardless of how great, good or bad they are. When it happens at the start of the season after coming as close as possible to a WS win, any faltering is going to be dissected to death like it means something that it probably doesn't

Really need some BP consistency though. SP has been excellent. Offense is riding the BABIP/RISP train since the power hasn't really shown up yet. Defense has been uncharacteristically below expectations but not really concerned with that over the course of the long season.