Are Marlins, A's woeful enough to lose 120?

A little more than a week into the season, it’s time for some sweeping generalizations, things we already know for sure after playing only 4.9% of the schedule through Friday’s games.

Jumping to conclusions? Maybe. But what else do we have to go on at this point?

So with that in mind, here are a few observations from the first week-plus, along with potential trends and pitfalls.

Just because it’s early April doesn’t mean these days can’t have lasting impact. Just ask World Series favorite Atlanta, which must worry about ligament damage to ace Spencer Strider’s elbow, leaving his season in doubt. Or the Brewers, whose faith in 20-year-old budding superstar Jackson Chourio already is being rewarded.

These games count, too. It’s just a matter of making the good times last. Or in the Mets’ case, trying to bang a quick U-turn back up the standings. Here we go .  .  .

Look out, ’62 Mets! It happens every spring. One team gets off to a pathetic April — typically the A’s — and we all begin scrambling for Jay Hook’s phone number again. This year’s “Ya Gotta Bereave” candidate is the Marlins, whose 0-8 start had them as the only winless team through Friday (though the Mets snapped their own 13-inning hitless streak to finally get a first W in the back half of Thursday’s doubleheader). Miami was a surprise playoff team last season, but the Fish already were down former Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara (Tommy John surgery) and also lost Braxton Garrett (shoulder) and Eury Perez (Tommy John surgery). The Marlins’ minus-30 run differential through Friday was second-worst in MLB, tied with the 1-7 A’s and behind only the 2-6 Rockies (minus-31).

Motown momentum. The Tigers were the edgy pick to win the AL Central title this season, and seven games in, everyone is climbing on the Detroit bandwagon. Tarik Skubal! Casey Mize! Riley Greene! Spencer Torkelson! Colt Keith! Parker Meadows! So much young talent coming of age in one of baseball’s weakest divisions, and the Tigers’ 6-1 start would seem to reflect that. Then you factor in their first three opponents: the White Sox (1-6), Mets (2-5) and A’s (1-7). The first real test could be the surprising Pirates (6-2) on Monday, with the AL Central rival Twins (3-3) to follow.

Shota the sure thing? Is it possible that the best Japanese pitcher signed this winter could be the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga? The 30-year-old lefty went mostly under the radar in the offseason, obscured by the breathless $325 million courtship of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, before signing a much more team-palatable four-year, $53 million deal with the Cubs. And while Yamamoto had a first-inning meltdown in his Seoul Series debut, Imanaga’s 5 2⁄3-inning no-hit bid matched the longest by a Cubs pitcher (Amaury Telemaco, 1996) in his debut since 1920, according to Elias. Imanaga struck out nine in six innings, and his 20 swings-and-misses were the third most by a pitcher in his debut since 2008, the start of the pitch-tracking era.

Three scary letters: U-C-L. The Yankees seemed to dodge a bullet when Gerrit Cole’s spring training elbow issue was diagnosed as nerve inflammation (stay tuned), but other teams haven’t been so lucky. The Marlins’ promising Perez, 20, had Tommy John surgery this past week, and as Atlanta was waiting to hear back Saturday on MRI results regarding Strider’s aching elbow, the Guardians announced that Shane Bieber, 28, would have Tommy John surgery after his two brilliant outings. Bieber is 2-0 with 20 strikeouts and only one walk in 12 scoreless innings for a 0.92 WHIP and .227 OBA. But he reportedly complained of elbow discomfort as far back as his Opening Day start against the A’s, and the UCL that troubled him last year now requires surgery. That’s a doubly painful blow for Bieber, who will be a free agent after this season and figured to be the most highly coveted pitcher at the trade deadline.

The (Manager’s) Office. This year’s Opening Day featured eight teams with new managers, the most since 2020, when those 10 represented the highest turnover in baseball history. That degree of shuffling always opens the debate to a manager’s changing/diminishing role, but considering that the Cubs gave Craig Counsell a record five-year, $40 million deal, there’s got to be some value to the gig. Through Friday’s games, the eight new managers had a combined 31-30 record, with Counsell’s former club, the Brewers (now led by Pat Murphy) at the top of the class (5-1) along with the Guardians’ Stephen Vogt (6-2). The Astros (2-6) and Mets (2-5) — led by two former Yankees coaches, Joe Espada and Carlos Mendoza, respectively — were at the bottom. The Angels’ Ron Washington, currently the oldest manager at 71, raised eyebrows by calling a team meeting after back-to-back blowout losses to the Orioles in the first two games, but they won four of the next five.

A solid Betts for MVP. OK, so I wasn’t exactly going out on a limb in making Mookie Betts my preseason pick for National League MVP. He got beat out a year ago for the award in a relatively close race with Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna Jr., but Betts also had reigning AL MVP Shohei Ohtani joining him as a teammate for 2024, crowding the NL field. No matter. Not only did the Dodgers move Betts to the defensively vital position of shortstop but he’s been unstoppable at the plate, batting .447 (17-for-38) with five homers, 15 runs, 11 RBIs and a 1.527 OPS through the first 10 games. Small sample size or not, that’s a Mookie on a mission.

Obstructing justice. MLB’s new crackdown on fielders blocking the bases is going to be a point of contention throughout this season, and a few disturbing instances during spring training probably won’t serve as enough of a warning. Take the Mets, for example, as Francisco Lindor was called for a violation when a base-stealer was out by five feet in a final-week Grapefruit League game against the Tigers. It happened again to the Mets on Friday, when Jeff McNeil was busted for obstruction on Santiago Espinal’s dive back to second on a pickoff throw from the plate. In McNeil’s case, his knee appeared to be in Espinal’s path, but that’s been a common practice for fielders and is going to take some habit-changing behavior because awarding extra bases is a very costly penalty.

A capital offense. As it turns out, the A’s pitiful performance on the field coming off two 100-loss seasons was nothing compared with the transgressions of team owner John Fisher this past week. With the A’s bolting for Las Vegas, which is building them a new stadium on the Strip, Fisher announced the franchise will move to a minor-league park in Sacramento at the end of this season rather than work out a five-year lease extension at Oakland Coliseum. The downgrade means the A’s will play at Sutter Health Park, sharing the 14,000-seat home of the Sacramento River Cats (the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate) through the 2027 season. The franchise also will be known simply as the A’s at that point rather than adopting the name of the state capital.

Gambling on Ohtani. The lead-up to Opening Day was dominated by the gambling scandal involving Ohtani and his longtime interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, who changed his initial story about borrowing money from the two-time MVP to cover his $4.5 million debt. Since Ohtani’s news conference on March 25 insisting that he himself does not gamble, and that the money was stolen, both the government’s case and MLB’s investigation have proceeded away from the public eye while Ohtani has gone back to baseball. He still hasn’t avoided negative scrutiny, however, as the team’s efforts to retrieve his first home run ball (as a Dodger) from an L.A. fan turned ugly. Through Friday, the $700 million DH was hitting .286 (12-for-42) with four doubles, two homers, six RBIs, nine strikeouts and an .850 OPS in 10 games.

Failure to launch. The Astros (2-6) are falling victim to some early score-settling at the hands of their AL rivals. The Yankees pulled off a four-game sweep during the opening weekend at Minute Maid Park, where the Astros blew leads in three of those losses. They followed that up with a no-hitter from Ronel Blanco — an emergency fill-in for their hurting rotation — in a series win over the Blue Jays. Then the AL West rival Rangers pounded them, 10-2, on Friday night at Globe Life Field, where the Astros previously had won eight straight (including three ALCS victories last October). Houston is still waiting for the return of three-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander (shoulder) and Jose Urquidy (forearm strain) but lost lefty bullpen piece Bennett Sousa for the year because of thoracic outlet surgery this past week.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.