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Week one by the numbers

Some random numeric values from the first half.

Ed Zurga

A quick glance at some numbers and miscellany from the first week of the season. Sample sizes be damned.

-- The Royals have yet to hit a home run. They are the only team in baseball without a home run. Currently, they have gone five games to open the season without going deep. Since 1993, only the Florida Marlins went six games without a home run to start a season.

The bottom three:

Royals - 0
Yankees - 1
Rangers - 2

A bunch of teams have hit three. The major league average per team so far is 5 home runs.

-- Continuing a theme from last year, Royals batters have whiffed just 25 times. That's the best mark in baseball.

The bottom three:

Royals - 25
Tigers - 26
Indians - 34
Rangers - 34

-- Players with at least 15 plate appearances without a base hit:

Mark Krauss - 15 PA
Mike Moustakas - 17 PA
Travis d'Arnaud - 17 PA
Zack Cozart - 20 PA

-- The Royals have yet to attempt a sacrifice bunt.

-- The Royals have not used a pinch hitter.

-- The Royals have used six pinch runners.

-- Jarrod Dyson has appeared in four games. All four games, he's entered as a pinch runner.

-- The Royals bullpen has inherited 12 runners. They have allowed eight to score. That's the highest total in baseball. Their 67 percent rate of allowing inherited runners to score is second worst behind the Angels who have allowed five of seven inherited runners to score. Last year, the Royals bullpen allowed 29 percent of inherited runners to score, which was right on the league average.

-- Average Leverage Index of relievers who have appeared in at least three games:

Joe Nathan - 3.778
Tommy Hunter - 3.405
JJ Hoover - 3.305
Jason Grilli - 3.270
Greg Holland - 2.943

Royals starting pitching, by date and Game Score:

3/31/ - James Shields - 53
4/2 - Jason Vargas - 68
4/4 - Jeremy Guthrie - 38
4/5 - Bruce Chen - 66
4/6 - James Shields - 69

-- Opposition base runner have had 71 opportunities to steal a base as defined by Baseball Reference. They have run four times and Salvador Perez has cut down two of them.

Again, don't be quick to draw conclusions from the numbers above. I just thought I'd throw some numbers out from the first week that caught my eye. Some may be interesting to track throughout the year.