La Velle E. Neal's Sunday Insider: It's been only two weeks!

Charles Krupa, Associated Press

The Detroit Tigers lost their first seven games despite being heavy favorites to win the Central Division.

Give the season a little more time to play out before jumping to any conclusions about what is going on.

Last update: April 12, 2008 - 11:32 PM

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We're only two weeks into the baseball season, but I have some advice that will get you through the rest of the month.

One, don't trust the weather forecasts. Two, don't trust early season trends.

Just from listening to the baseball chatter around town and reading some responses on the various blogs on www.startribune.com, it seems Twins fans have gotten wrapped up in April stats (give Craig Monroe a chance, please), but April stats can be very misleading.

The Tigers fell to 2-9 Saturday, but they aren't finished. Florida is 7-4 but probably isn't a contender.

Arizona was on pace to hit 306 homers and score 972 runs. Boston pitchers averaged nearly five walks a game while Twins pitchers averaged just over one. Will that continue?

A wise baseball fan told me last week that there's so much anticipation over the start of a new season, it is easy to blow early stats out of proportion. I tend to agree. I mean, do we really think that David Ortiz is going to bat below .100 or that Corey Patterson is going to maintain an OPS above 1.000 all year?

Guess who led each division on April 13 last year? The Blue Jays, Angels, Twins and Tigers (tied), Dodgers, Reds and Mets and Braves (also tied). Only one of those teams, the Angels, reached the postseason.

Early speed doesn't win this race. Stumbling out of the blocks doesn't guarantee that a team is done. Players and teams will have their hot and cold streaks throughout the season. What difference does it make if it happens the first week of April or the middle of August?

Let's look at two teams, one playing rather well and one really struggling.

The Baltimore Orioles are 7-4. The bullpen has performed much better than anticipated, and a few hitters have been hot.

Big deal. Mike Huckabee got off to a fast start, too. This is an Orioles team that won 69 games last year, then traded away its best hitter (Miguel Tejada) and starting pitcher (Erik Bedard). Baltimore is using a lot of young players, and the lumps will come as soon they take a few trips up and down that AL East.

The other team is the Detroit Tigers. We all knew the Tigers entered the season with key relievers Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney on the disabled list, along with star center fielder Curtis Granderson. But who saw them losing their first seven games?

That led to the ominous note from retrosheet.org: No team has started the season 0-7 and made the playoffs.

The Tigers have too much offense to count them out. And the overall competitiveness of the AL Central will make it difficult for one team to run away with the division. Once some players get healthy and the offense gets going, the Tigers are just as capable of an 9-2 run as they were a 2-9 start.

Here's a stat Detroit fans can embrace: Four teams were under .500 baseball last April -- the Yankees, Phillies, Cubs and Rockies -- and still made the playoffs. The Rockies were 10-16 in April and reached the World Series.

Trust me. If you're in the Twin Cities, you can put the snowblower away. And if you need to resist the urge to buy into early season trends, just remember that Ramon Ortiz began last season 3-0.