A couple Fridays ago, Tyson Ross took a no-hitter against the Diamondbacks into the eighth inning. It was complicated, even as no-hitters go — no-hitters are special, and the Padres have never thrown one, but it should also be more about the team than the player. On top of that, Ross was allowed to throw 127 pitches, and he’s a guy with a record of arm problems. Even going into the eighth, Ross completing the no-hitter seemed highly unlikely. You could argue, if you wanted to, that Andy Green took too great of a risk.

Over the course of that dominant start, Ross racked up ten strikeouts. And as long as we’re here, let’s consider that record of arm problems. Ross had a miserable 2017. That followed a differently miserable 2016, in which he was able to make only one start. What that would suggest is that, these days, Tyson Ross might be fragile. On the other hand, what if he’s not? What if he’s actually all the way better? Because it’s looking to me like Tyson Ross is all the way better.

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The Mariners aren’t a difficult team to understand. On the pitching side, they want to get the ball from James Paxton to Edwin Diaz. When those pitchers aren’t available — which is most of the time — the position players need to hit the crap out of the ball. To this point, it’s worked; while the Mariners have been outscored, they are in at least temporary possession of a wild-card slot, with the lineup owning a 109 wRC+. During a four-game weekend series in Cleveland, the Mariners put up 32 runs, which would be a lot of runs against anyone anywhere.

It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that Robinson Cano has been productive. He’s dramatically cut down his swing rate, causing his walk rate to double. Nelson Cruz, Jean Segura, Dee Gordon — these players, also, were supposed to be good. Yet the best hitter on the team has been none other than Mitch Haniger. In other words, Haniger is doing it again. He’s looking to cement his place as the breakout star of the Segura/Taijuan Walker trade.

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The Diamondbacks are way out in first place in the National League West, and while the biggest story might arguably be the early struggles of the Dodgers, Arizona has issued an immediate reminder that last year this club just won 93 games. J.D. Martinez is gone, playing now in Boston. Steven Souza Jr. is on the disabled list. Jake Lamb is also on the disabled list. But the Diamondbacks have still thrived, not even needing that many surprises. Patrick Corbin is one — his development has been an encouraging turn. And then there’s the matter of the shortstop. The no-hit glove guy who had to fight for a job.

Before the year, for the Effectively Wild podcast, Ben Lindbergh and I ran our annual season-preview series. When it came time to talk about the Diamondbacks, we chatted with guest Nick Piecoro. Piecoro expressed what I found to be a surprising amount of optimism about Nick Ahmed. Ahmed had never before hit well in the majors, and his peripheral skills didn’t suggest a strong offensive foundation. How many no-hit shortstops figure it out at 28? Ahmed was never a threat. Suffice to say Piecoro caught me off guard.

And now here we are, and as early as it is, Ahmed owns a three-digit wRC+. By itself, that’s not much. Roughly half of all batters will have a three-digit wRC+. But you have to remember where Ahmed is coming from. You have to remember his record.

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The Shohei Ohtani frenzy has at least somewhat died down. This will by no means be a permanent thing, but, to a certain extent this is always inevitable, whenever something new isn’t so new anymore. We’ve seen Ohtani now. We’ve celebrated him. We’ve celebrated the pitching, and we’ve celebrated the hitting. On top of that, Ohtani hasn’t played very much lately. There’s been a blister thing, and now there’s an ankle thing, and while these things aren’t particularly serious, Ohtani has batted just twice over the past week, and he’s started one game on the mound. Neither of his last two pitching starts has been great.

The internet, you might say, is waiting for Shohei Ohtani to have another moment. After all, we all just want to be impressed. But in reality, Ohtani just had another moment. On Friday night, Ohtani hit a home run. And not a regular, run-of-the-mill home run. This requires a little bit of background, but that home run was really amazing. Ohtani is developing before our very eyes.

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I don’t mean to pick on Jose Abreu. Abreu has had a fine start to the season, and he is currently under the weather. But, to this point, Abreu has batted five times with less than two out and a runner on third. In zero of those five chances has the runner been driven home. Twice, Abreu has hit into a double play. Once, he’s popped out. Once, he’s struck out. And once, he’s lined out. He’s better than this, of course, and eventually the RBI will be there, but from a fan perspective, few things are more frustrating than such a wasted opportunity.

Every opportunity that doesn’t work out feels wasted. And in large part I think it’s because people don’t really know what normal is. Of course teams can’t convert every opportunity, but, it’s just moving a runner up 90 feet, right? It sounds like it should be easy. In a way, it’s just like bunting. You feel like everyone should be able to do it, but it’s surprisingly challenging to execute. It’s helpful to look at the league-wide numbers. It’s the only way to establish the proper context.

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Even at FanGraphs, I’m one of the last people you should ask about swagger. Among the few things I know about swagger, though, is that Jarrod Dyson has it. He plays his game with a particular flair, and it was on display earlier Thursday, when Dyson struck a pose after lifting his 14th career home run. You wouldn’t think that a hitter with Dyson’s profile would necessarily recognize a homer off the bat, but for a fleeting instant, as Dyson’s body twisted on its right heel, he looked like he’d done this a hundred other times.

Dyson knew it right away. Apparently, so did the catcher. The game was one of those miserable new Facebook broadcasts, so I can’t speak highly of the viewing experience, but as the feed rolled into a replay of the swing, one of the announcer’s voices cracked as he exclaimed, “He bunted last night! With the bases juiced!”

He wasn’t wrong, and if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have known. On Thursday, Jarrod Dyson went deep. On Wednesday, he dropped down a bases-loaded bunt. Both of these events are unusual, but I’d like to now focus on the latter.

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Officially, Ronald Acuna Jr. has been promoted. It’s right there on the transaction wire, with Peter Bourjos getting designated for assignment to make room. In short, it’s Acuna Day, or at least, it’s the first of what people hope will be hundreds or thousands of Acuna Days to celebrate. All the ugliness about service-time manipulation — it’s all still there, and it’s going to happen again, but at least Acuna himself won’t have to play in the minors ever again, barring a slump or a rehab stint. Today is the first day that Acuna will earn a major-league salary.

Acuna is pretty much the center of attention. Indirectly, though, that makes the Braves kind of the center of attention on the team scale. And, you know what, all things considered, the Braves have had a pretty strong start, even without their top prospect. They have more wins than losses, and one thing I’ve been struck by are surprise contributions from various journeymen. Even though he’s presently hurt, the Braves have gotten use out of Anibal Sanchez. Ryan Flaherty has been outstanding in the infield, even though he’ll shortly be replaced by Jose Bautista. Preston Tucker has been fine as a regular outfielder, even though he’s being replaced by Acuna. And then there’s backup catcher Kurt Suzuki. The backup to the currently injured Tyler Flowers.

For Suzuki, we’re not talking about only a productive first month. This would’ve been incredibly easy to miss, but Suzuki was tremendous in 2017, too, as a part-timer. Then the Braves re-signed him for $3.5 million. It’s been a long time since Suzuki was considered someone compelling. He’s 34 years old, which means he doesn’t have many playing years left. I don’t know how much more Kurt Suzuki is going to do. But as a fun little exercise, I’ve put together a short quiz. Let us give Suzuki the credit he deserves.

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Some kind of cliff is almost certainly coming, but the Giants figure they could still have another run. For 2018 — and, right now, all that matters is 2018 — the Giants ought to be competitive. Far more competitive than they were last summer. You know the criticisms, though. The Giants are old. They might not have enough youth. And they also might not have enough power. That’s something they’ve worked to address, and their actual power is somewhat depressed by their own home ballpark, but recent Giants lineups haven’t instilled much fear. The club has been done no favors by Hunter Pence’s apparent decline.

Just the other day, 27-year-old righty Mac Williamson hit this home run.

On its own, that’s impressive. Righties don’t hit home runs to that area in San Francisco, particularly at night. But if you know anything about Williamson, you know he’s always had power. Every so often, Williamson would run into a ball and obliterate it. The issue, as it frequently is, was consistency. Williamson didn’t do that often enough. How many hitters do that often enough?

So let’s no longer look at this on its own. Since being recalled from the minors, Williamson has started five games. He homered in the first one. He homered in the fourth one. And he homered in the fifth one. Something might be brewing, here. Because Williamson isn’t just a player doing well. He’s a player doing well after overhauling the very core of his game.

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There are certain players who are made more interesting by the greater context. Why is Team X suddenly so successful? Credit should go to the surprising Player Y. Certain other players, though — with some guys, the context is almost irrelevant. They can’t help but be compelling, regardless of whether their team is great or terrible. Joey Gallo is one of these players. Gallo is fascinating, and the Rangers are 8-16. Gallo would be no more fascinating if the Rangers were 16-8. Gallo is forever interesting to me, and he is forever interesting to you, because he might well be baseball’s most extreme hitter. He’s a project, a test of a prospect model we’ve hardly ever seen.

In a sense, Gallo has already passed the test. In his first year as a full-time player, he was worth 3 WAR, with a low batting average but a strong batting line. It’s one thing for a player to succeed over a month or a month and a half, but for me, personally, I like to leave time for opponents to adjust. Opponents adjusted, and Gallo adjusted back. He was better in last year’s second half than he was in the first. Over the course of 2017, Gallo proved that he’s a big-league ballplayer. It was a triumphant season for his extraordinary skillset.

And yet it’s not as if Gallo is all through with his progress. What we’re seeing in this year’s early going is something incredible indeed. One of the core things that’s made Joey Gallo Joey Gallo is starting to go away. Every good hitter evolves, but Gallo was starting with a truly weird foundation.

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