Statistical Oddities

Today is June 11. Most teams have played about 65 games, meaning we're roughly 40% through the 2008 regular season. Yet, there's still some awfully weird stuff happening, aside from the fact that Tampa has a 3.5 game lead over Oakland for the AL Wild Card.

Here are a few of my favorite examples...

*Milton Bradley, a career .278 hitter, has the highest batting average in the American League (.338).

*In nearly 220 at-bats, Chipper Jones is still hitting .420. He needs to hit approximately .387 the rest of the season to finish up at .400.

*The top 2 pitchers in the AL in wins right now (Cliff Lee and Joe Saunders) already have more wins this season than they did all of last season.

*Entering this season, Edinson Volquez had given up 64 earned runs in 80 career innings. This season, he's given up 14 earned runs in 81 innings, en route to the lowest ERA (1.56) in baseball.

*Ryan Howard has 38 more strikeouts (89) than hits (51).

*Miguel Cabrera is tied for 29th in the league in homeruns, 17th in RBI, and 32nd in batting average. Last year he was 5th, 3rd, and 8th.

*Adam Dunn and Jack Cust are hitting .240 and .247 respectively but their on base percentages are .406 and .407 respectively!

*Four of the top-10 strikeout pitchers in baseball (Sabathia, Harang, Billingsley, Burnett) have losing records.

*Jacoby Ellsbury has more walks than strikeouts and more steals than RBI.

*Joey Votto is on pace to commit 20 errors this season at first base. Kevin Youkilis has one error at first base in 185 games over the last two seasons.

*And perhaps my favorite...Nate McLouth has more extra base hits this season (37) than every single All-Star from 2007 except Chase Utley (41).