SPECULATOR: It was just ONE bad day

It's one of the worst feelings in our game.

You pull out your phone to check on your starting pitcher for the day, and bam: the other team has seven-plus runs by the third inning. Any errors? Nope, all runs are earned. Assuming you haven't thrown your phone yet, you check your league's live standings and—at this juncture of the season—you've dropped five points. It stings, and we've all been there.

And if it seems like blowups have been popping up more frequently this season, they (kind of) have been. Here are the number of starts in April and May, by season since 2013, resulting in 7+ or 8+ earned runs:

      STARTS WITH
Year  7+ ER  8+ ER
====  =====  =====
2013    76     29
2014    55     18
2015    72     29
2016    65     19
2017 ...

Almost!

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