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Dan Haren of the Los Angeles Angels will be looking to change his fortunes around when he gets the nod tonight against the Seattle Mariners (10:10 ET). He enters having lost four straight starts for the second time in his career, having previously done it in 2005. While Haren does have a 5.79 ERA in that stretch, the Angels have managed a total of two runs in those four games.

The Angels are 1-8 in his nine starts, and only Haren and Chris Volstad of the Chicago Cubs have seen their team lose eight of their starts this season. In addition, only teammate Ervin Santana has received worse support in the AL. The Angels have scored more than three runs just once in Haren's nine starts.

Ike Davis Slumping
The New York Mets are four games over .500 despite Ike Davis having one of the worst seasons in the majors. Davis has the second-lowest batting average among qualifying players, including a .065 average at home, and based on WAR, Davis is the least valuable player in the majors.

When he is making contact this year, Davis has seen a very high percentage of his balls in play turn to outs. Among all players this season, Davis' .188 batting average on balls in play is the lowest.

Last year, Davis found considerable success against the fastball, batting .343 with an OPS of 1.100. This year, those numbers have dropped to .157 and .448.

Other Key Notes
- Ichiro Suzuki was just 2-18 vs Dan Haren last season. He's a .227 career batter vs Haren.
- Hunter Pence is 7-12 (.583) in his career vs Jake Westbrook.
- Philip Humber has a 7.86 ERA since his perfect game.
- Albert Pujols has 3 HR, 8 RBI in his last nine games.
- Cincinnati Reds have a season-high five-game win streak.

Earlier this season, Ervin Santana couldn’t get any run support. Against the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday, he took matters into his own hands.

Santana started the season by losing his first six starts. His 5.59 ERA in that span didn’t help, but the Los Angeles Angels offense made picking up wins impossible.

After scoring three runs in Santana’s first start of the season, the Angels were shut out in his next five starts. Thanks to our friends at Elias, we know that this stretch was the first time in major-league history that a team failed to score a run in five straight starts by a pitcher.

Through their first 37 games, the Angels have been shut out eight times. The last American League team to be shut out this frequently early in the season was the 2003 Detroit Tigers, who finished 43-119 that season.

Santana turned the corner in a 6-2 win over the Minnesota Twins last week and was even better against the A’s Tuesday afternoon. He picked up his second straight win by striking out nine in 7⅔ shutout innings.

Santana was especially effective with his slider. He recorded six of his nine strikeouts on the pitch, with Oakland hitters missed on 12 of their 23 swings. Those 12 swinging strikes are the most that he has recorded with his slider in the last two seasons.

In addition to the six strikeouts, the A’s recorded outs all four times they put his slider in play. It was the first time since Santana’s no-hitter last July that he did not allow a hit with the pitch.

Santana was also able to mix in his changeup to keep the seven lefties in the Oakland lineup off balance. He threw 17 changeups, all to left-handed hitters, his most in a start in the last four seasons and didn’t surrender a hit on the pitch.

Mike Trout scored three of the four runs in support of Santana, finishing the game with three hits and his third home run of the season. After struggling against fastballs last season, Trout is hitting over .300 with all three homers against heat this season.

Albert Pujols also recorded one of his best games at the plate so far this season, rapping out three hits and driving in two runs. Three of his six multi-hit games this year have come against the Athletics, including both three-hit games.

Around the Diamond
• Bryce Harper went deep for the second straight game. According to Elias, he’s the fifth number one pick to hit his first two home runs in back-to-back games, joining Josh Hamilton, Chipper Jones, Ken Griffey Jr. and Darryl Strawberry.

• Edwin Encarnacion hit his 12th home run of the season, with nine of them at Rogers Centre. In the last two years, 23 of his 29 homers (79 percent) have been at home. That’s the highest percentage in the majors over that span.

• Derek Lowe induced 22 outs on groundballs as he became the first pitcher since Scott Erickson in 2002 to toss a shutout without recording a strikeout.

• After allowing only seven total runs in five April starts, Colby Lewis has allowed six-or-more runs in each of his starts in May.

Hammer time comes to Sunday Night Baseball (8 ET, ESPN) as Josh Hamilton and the Texas Rangers host the Los Angeles Angels in the rubber match of their three-game series.

Hamilton has already had quite a week, with nine home runs and 15 RBI in six games. With a home run on Sunday, he can become the first player with 19 home runs in his team’s first 35 games of a season. Albert Pujols (2006 Cardinals) and Cy Williams (1923 Phillies) had 18 home runs after 35 team games.

He needs one homer to match Shawn Green (2002), Albert Belle (1995) and Frank Howard (1968) for the most home runs in a seven-game span with ten.

In fact, Hamilton has almost outproduced the Angels on his own since Monday. Compared to his nine homers and 15 RBI since Monday, the Angels have driven in 18 on four home runs in the same span.

It hasn’t just been Hamilton for the Rangers this season. The Rangers and Cardinals are both outscoring their opponents by more than two runs per game. No other team is averaging more than one more run scored than its opponent.

Jered Weaver will look to slow down Hamilton and the Rangers offense. He is looking to start a season 6-0 for the third time in his career. Only nine pitchers, none of them active, have done that in major-league history. The record is four seasons by Roger Clemens.

Weaver has allowed just one run in his last 23 innings, but has struggled in Arlington. In 13 career starts at Rangers Ballpark, he has posted a 2-6 record with a 4.55 ERA. The only ballpark where he has a worse ERA in more than three starts is Fenway Park, where he has a 7.16 ERA in six starts.

Weaver has been able to succeed by relying on his fastball early and expanding his repertoire as the game progresses. He throws fastballs 77 percent of the time the first time through the order but only relies on heat 54 percent of the time after that.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Albert Pujols has struggled since joining the Angels in the offseason. Entering the year, his 1.037 OPS was the sixth-highest in major-league history. So far this season, his .514 OPS is the fourth-lowest in the American League.

His biggest problem has been identifying pitches outside the strike zone. He drew a walk against the Rangers on Saturday, snapping a career-long streak of 14 straight games without a free pass.

In his first 11 seasons, he drew a walk in 13 percent of his plate appearances – so far this year, he’s drawing walks only 5 percent of the time. He is swinging at pitches outside the zone 36 percent of the time, compared to a league average of 28 percent.

Josh Hamilton homered for the ninth time in his past six games Saturday, sending C.J. Wilson’s 80 mph curveball into the right-field seats in the sixth inning of the Texas Rangers' 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels.

One key to Hamilton’s power surge has been his ability hit breaking balls out of the yard. After Saturday, Hamilton now has seven home runs on breaking balls this season, already his most in any season since joining the Rangers in 2008.

Hamilton is hitting .420 against breaking balls in 2012, a dramatic increase over his .260 average against such pitches a year ago. And his slugging percentage against curveballs and sliders is .860, dwarfing his 2011 mark of .468.

Hamilton’s sudden ability to smash breaking balls has helped him get off to one of the best starts to a season in major league history.

His 18 homers have tied Cy Williams of the 1923 Phillies for the most all-time through 34 team games. And with nine home runs in his past six games, Hamilton is just one shy of the MLB record for homers in a six-game span set by Frank Howard with 10 in 1968, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Hamilton’s 18 home runs this season are five more than the entire San Diego Padres team and one fewer than the Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Twins.

Hamilton will look to continue his record run Sunday night against Jered Weaver and the Angels on ESPN. Hamilton has 34 career at-bats against Weaver, his second most against any pitcher, but just one home run.

Elsewhere in the majors Saturday:

• 2011 home run champ Jose Bautista hit his 10th career home run at Target Field in just his 10th game at the park. Only four players, all Twins, have more HR at Target Field since it opened in 2010. According to Elias, Bautista is the first player to hit 10 HR in his first 10 games in a ballpark since Shawn Green at Miller Park from 2001 to 2004.

• Roy Halladay took the loss after allowing seven hits and two runs in seven innings as the Philadelphia Phillies lost to the Padres. The Phillies have now lost each of Halladay’s past five starts. That ties the longest losing streak for a team in Roy Halladay starts, matching the Toronto Blue Jays' five-game losing streak in Halladay starts in 1999.

• The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians 4-1 for their second straight home win following a six-game losing streak at Fenway Park. It’s the first time the Red Sox have won back-to-back home games since April 13-15.

The American League West was supposed to be a two-team race between the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels.

However, not only are the Angels in last place in the West, but they are seven games behind the first-place Rangers.

The series begins Friday with C.J. Wilson making his return to Texas after signing the largest free agent contract by a starting pitcher in the offseason. And a big matchup will be how Wilson handles the red-hot Josh Hamilton, who has hit six home runs in his last four games.

Wilson hasn’t been one of the American League’s elite pitchers against left-handed hitters, but he’s been better than most. Lefties are hitting .174 and slugging .239 against Wilson. He’s also struck out 36 percent of the left-handed hitters he’s faced (18-50) and allowed only one home run.

Hamilton is hitting .381 against left-handed pitching with four home runs.

Opposing Wilson will be Yu Darvish, who signed the second-largest contract by a starting pitcher in the offseason.

Darvish has many pitches, including two different curveballs. Almost 15 percent of Darvish’s pitches this season (98 of 661) have been curveballs, and opponents are hitting just .059 against it. That’s the lowest batting average this season against a pitcher who has thrown at least 75 curveballs.

Darvish has been tough on right-handed hitters this season (.196 BA, 9-46), which does not bode well for the struggling Albert Pujols.

Based on the numbers, Pujols can expect to see a heavy diet of off-speed pitches from Darvish. Pujols is hitting .239 against fastballs and .125 against off-speed pitches (changeups, curves, sliders).

As good as Darvish is against righties, left-handed bats have teed off on his fastball. Left-handed batters are hitting .457 against his heater, another reason why the Angels might see a lot of off-speed pitches from Darvish.

Stats & Info insights into this morning's top sports stories

1. SPURS FINISH OFF SWEEP: The San Antonio Spurs defeated the Utah Jazz, 87-81, finishing a four-game sweep to advance to the Western Conference Semifinals. This was the Spurs sixth postseason sweep since Tim Duncan was a rookie in the 1997-98 season. According to Elias, that ranks second in the NBA. Only the Los Angeles Lakers, with seven, have more over the last 15 seasons.

2. PAUL & GRIFFIN LEAD CLIPPERS TO VICTORY: The Los Angeles Clippers defeated the Memphis Grizzlies, 101-97 in overtime, to take a 3-1 series lead. According to Elias, the Clippers became the first NBA team to have a pair of players (Chris Paul, Blake Griffin), with at least 25 points and at least seven assists in a playoff game since they did it themselves back on May 14, 2006 (Elton Brand had 30 and eight and Sam Cassell had 28 and nine in a victory over the Phoenix Suns).

3. RANGERS EARN HISTORIC WIN: The New York Rangers defeated the Washington Capitals, 3-2 in overtime to take a 3-2 series lead. That win would not have been possible if Brad Richards hadn’t tied the game with seven seconds left in regulation. According to Elias, this is the first NHL postseason to have three games feature game-tying goals in the final 15 seconds of regulation. The first-two games in the Phoenix Coyotes - Chicago Blackhawks series also had such goals.

4. COYOTES IN UNCHARTED TERRITORY: The Coyotes defeated the Nashville Predators, 2-1, to win the Western Conference Semifinals in five games. The Coyotes advanced to their first Conference Finals since joining the NHL in 1979-80. Prior to joining the NHL, the franchise (then known as the Winnipeg Jets) reached the WHA (Avco Cup) Finals five times in seven seasons.

5. WEAVER PERFECT 5-0: Jered Weaver allowed one earned run in six innings, as the Los Angeles Angels defeated the Minnesota Twins, 8-3. For the third time, Weaver has started a season 5-0. According to Elias, he joined Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens and Christy Mathewson as the only pitchers to start 5-0 in three seasons.

6. RED HOT ROOKIE: The Boston Red Sox defeated the Kansas City Royals, 11-5 to snap a five-game losing streak. Red Sox third baseman Will Middlebrooks remained hot, going 3 for 5, with two home runs and five RBI. According to Elias, he tied the MLB record for most RBI (nine) in a player’s first four games to start career.

It was a long wait for Albert Pujols to hit his first home run of 2012.

It wasn’t quite as long a wait for the Baltimore Orioles-Boston Red Sox marathon game on Sunday to end, but it was quite entertaining.

And then the day was capped off by a teenage phenom stealing home on Sunday Night Baseball.

Let’s review the most noteworthy nuggets regarding each of these Sunday storylines.

Pujols, finally!
Albert Pujols homered on his 111th at-bat of the season, on a 2-2 slider from Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Drew Hutchison.

Thus ended, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, the longest homerless drought to begin a season by any player who entered that season with at least 400 career home runs.

The previous mark was set by Eddie Murray, who was homerless in his first 109 at-bats of the 1996 season.

It also marked Pujols’ first extra-base hit of the season on an offspeed pitch. He entered Sunday with only five hits on offspeed pitches all season.

Through the first 28 games of last season, Pujols was only hitting .245, but he had seven home runs.

His fewest home runs through his first 28 games in a season was five, in 2002 and 2008.

He’s hit as many as 15 home runs in his first 28 games, doing so in 2006.

Orioles Magic lives at Fenway Park
The Orioles completed a three-game sweep of the Red Sox, but it took a remarkable effort by a position-player pitcher to finish Baltimore’s first sweep at Fenway Park since 1994.


Chris Davis started the day as the designated hitter and his afternoon at the plate was a forgettable one— 0-for-8 with five strikeouts and a double play.

But the conclusion to his afternoon, one that lasted more than six hours, was memorable. Davis became the first American League position player to earn a win since Rocky Colavito of the 1968 New York Yankees, triumphing thanks to a three-run home run by teammate Adam Jones off Red Sox position player turned reliever, Darnell McDonald.

Elias had two amazing notes from Davis’ day:

Davis became the first player to go 0-for-8 in a game in which he pitched since Leon Cadore for the 1920 Brooklyn Robins against the Boston Braves. The neat thing about that: Cadore pitched 26 innings in a game that finished in a tie.

He was also the first player to go 0-for-8 and earn a win since Hall-of-Famer Rube Waddell for the 1905 Philadelphia Athletics against those same Red Sox. Waddell not only won-- he pitched a 20-inning complete game.

Harper Does Something Unusual
Bryce Harper has had a knack for wowing fans through his first eight games and did so again on Sunday night. He stole home as the Philadelphia Phillies attempted a pickoff at first base.

It was the third steal of home on a pickoff attempt over the past two seasons. The success rate on players attempting to steal home in any fashion over that span is 29 percent.

Elias noted that the 19-year-old Harper became the first teenager to steal home since the Angels’ 19-year-old Ed Kirkpatrick of the Los Angeles Angels against the Philadelphia Athletics on May 5, 1964, nearly 48 years to the day.

By now, everyone knows Albert Pujols is struggling. It’s not news. On the heels of a $240 million contract, he’s having the worst start to a season in his career.

But he may be sitting at rock bottom right now. For the first time this season, Pujols was not in the Angels' starting lineup on Saturday. And it was due to a managerial decision, not an injury.

Pujols was hitting .296 (16-for-54) with four RBIs, seven doubles, a .333 OBP and a .426 slugging percentage through April 19. Considering he also had no homers, those numbers weren’t very good, but they weren’t awful.

But since April 20, Pujols has really gone downhill. During that span, he’s hitting .093 (5-for-54) with one RBI, one extra-base hit, a .140 OBP and a .111 slugging percentage.

Since April 20, Pujols has the worst batting average, OBP and slugging percentage in baseball.

Pujols has gone 37 regular-season games (27 this year, final 10 last year) without a multi-RBI game, the longest streak of his career. His previous longest streak was 27 games in 2002.

And we all know about how Pujols has no homers in 108 at bats this season, the longest single-season streak of his career. Mike Trout hit his first homer of the season for the Angels on Saturday. He now has one more homer than Pujols in more than 100 fewer at-bats this year.

Much of Pujols’ struggles this season can be attributed to his inability to hit offspeed pitches. He’s hitting .114 this season (5-for-44) against changeups, curveballs and sliders with zero extra-base hits and two RBIs.

Pujols is chasing 46 percent of offspeed pitches thrown to him outside of the strike zone this season.

OTHER MLB NOTES FROM SATURDAY
Troy Tulowitzki committed his seventh error of the season in the Rockies' 26th game. He committed six errors all of last season in 140 games.

Adam Dunn's home run had a true distance of 438 feet, the longest home run given up by Jose Valverde since the start of the 2006 season. Valverde blew his second save of the season after not blowing any last season.

The Red Sox have lost nine of their past 10 games at Fenway Park. It’s the first time they’ve lost nine of 10 games at Fenway Park since 1994, when they lost 12 straight home games in June that year.

After one month of baseball, the American League East sits atop ESPN Stats & Info’s MLB Divisional Power Rankings by a wide margin.

Dating to last season, the AL East has never held a larger lead than its current 25.6-point lead over the National League East. Strong starts by the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays have given the AL East five of the top 12 teams in baseball, according to ESPN.com’s most recent power rankings.

Additionally, the AL East has been close to unstoppable outside of the division, posting a 44-25 (.637 win percentage) record in games against non-divisional opponents. No other division has a win percentage above .515 in non-divisional games.

What may be most surprising about the AL East is that unheralded names are making an impact for their teams. Toronto's Edwin Encarnacion and Kelly Johnson rank fourth and 20th, respectively, in ESPN’s Player Rating system, combining for 15 of Toronto’s 32 home runs through May 2.

The AL West has its share of players off to fast starts with Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, Felix Hernandez, Yu Darvish and Jered Weaver all ranking in the top 10 of ESPN’s batter and pitcher ratings. Five players from the AL West is the most from one division.

The Los Angeles Angels play 17 more games in May against teams that currently do not have a winning record. If the Angels can turn things around and live up to preseason expectations, the AL West has a chance to close the gap on the AL East.

The AL Central currently sits at the bottom of the divisional rankings with only one team above .500. Against non-divisional opponents, the AL Central is 29-48 (.377 win percent), by far the worst win percentage of any division.

The Minnesota Twins have been the worst team in baseball outside their division, winning five of 17 games against non-divisional opponents.

The weekend of May 18 presents several opportunities to shake up the rankings.

Divisional leaders clash in the National League, with the St. Louis Cardinals visiting the Los Angeles Dodgers. Interleague highlights include the Philadelphia Phillies hosting the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds visiting the New York Yankees.

For a brief recap of how we rank the divisions, click here.

A lot of attention is being paid to Albert Pujols and his homerless streak to start the season (101 at-bats, 107 plate appearances). The focus on Pujols is justified, but it has taken the attention away from another question about the lack of power in major-league baseball:

Why haven’t any pitchers this season hit a home run?

Entering play on Thursday, there have been 881 plate appearances and 750 at-bats by pitchers this season, and none of those led to a round-tripper. This season is the first time since 1994 that there was not a home run hit by a pitcher before the end of April.

It's also the fifth season without a pitcher home run before the end of April since the American League adopted the designated hitter rule in 1973. The latest a pitcher hit a home run in a season during that timeframe was 1983, when reliever Rick Behenna hit one on June 8. Ironically, the opposing starting pitcher, Fernando Valenzuela, hit a home run later in that same game.

2012 is the 40th season since the start of the designated hitter, so you can split that timeframe into four 10-year segments. A prevailing theory is that power numbers for pitchers might fade because they no longer are used to hitting as much as they did before the DH rule.

But the power numbers have increased as the years have worn on. Home runs by pitchers before May 1 since the American League adopted the DH in 1973:

• 2003-2012: 28
• 1993-2002: 32
• 1983-1992: 21
• 1973-1982: 23

Back to Pujols, who remains homerless in 2012. The most consecutive at-bats in a season Pujols has gone without a home run is 105, and that was last season. Before 2011, Pujols had never gone more than 79 at-bats without going deep.

Pujols ranks 37th all-time with 445 home runs, but has gone 130 at-bats dating to last season since his last regular-season HR. The longest homerless drought among players ranked in the top 10 belongs to Babe Ruth, who went without 173 at-bats to end the 1918 season without a home run, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Also according to Elias, only two players in the top 10 all-time in home runs never had drought that reached triple digits: Hank Aaron (92) and Jim Thome (88).

Jered Weaver threw the 10th no-hitter in franchise history as the Los Angeles Angels beat the Minnesota Twins 9-0 to sweep a series for the first time this season. It was the 250th regular-season no-hitter in MLB history.

Since the Angels entered the American League in 1961, no major-league team has more no-hitters. The Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers also have 10 no-hitters in that span.

Weaver was able to shut down the Twins without needing to go to his secondary pitches. Nineteen of his 28 outs (including Chris Parmelee, who reached on a passed ball after striking out) were on fastballs. Six of his nine strikeouts were recorded on fastballs, with two on sliders and one on a curveball – his only out on a hook all night.

Since the start of the 2009 season, Weaver has relied on his fastball 56 percent of the time. Against the Twins on Wednesday, he went with the heat on 75 of 121 pitches (62 percent). While the outs came more easily than normal, his percent of pitches for strikes - 64 percent - was the same in the no-hitter as over the last four seasons.

It was the second no-hitter in major-league history thrown on May 2. The other was tossed by Fred Toney of the Cincinnati Reds in 1917.

The Halos have been brightest on Wednesday recently. With Weaver’s gem, the last three Angels' no-hitters have been thrown on Wednesday. Ervin Santana no-hit the Cleveland Indians last year, the first no-hitter for the Angels since Mark Langston and Mike Witt combined to allow no hits against the Seattle Mariners in 1990.

It was the first time that the Twins fell victim to a no-hitter since May 17, 1998, when David Wells threw a perfect game at Yankee Stadium.

Combined with Philip Humber's perfect game in April, this is the earliest in the calendar that two no-hitters have been thrown since 1994 (when there were three at this point). Last season was a near miss, as Francisco Liriano and Justin Verlander both threw no-hitters in the first week of May.

Weaver is the fifth pitcher overall, and the second in Angels history, to throw a no-hitter the year after being the runner-up in Cy Young voting. The last was Kevin Brown, who threw a no-hitter for the Florida Marlins in 1997 after finishing behind John Smoltz in NL Cy Young voting in 1996.

On the offensive side, it was the third straight game that the Angels hit two home runs. In the first 22 games of the season, they only had two multi-homer games.

Albert Pujols was one of the few hitters that didn’t benefit during the Angels’ 15-hit attack. He went 1-for-5 and has failed to hit a home run in his last 130 regular-season at-bats.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, 247 players have hit a home run this season.

Albert Pujols is not one of them.

Pujols’ 0 HR in 92 at-bats this season is the third-longest homerless streak to start a season by a player with at least 400 career HR, according to Elias. Only Eddie Murray (109 in 1996) and Ken Griffey Jr. (98 in 2010) had longer streaks.

Pujols was supposed to be the talk of southern California, not the Los Angeles Dodgers Matt Kemp, who leads the National League in all three Triple Crown categories.

Kemp (.425, 12 HR, 25 RBI) had a season-high four RBI on April 14 against the Padres. That’s as many RBI as Pujols has this season.

Let’s go a little deeper.

Kemp struck out 159 times last season, 101 more than Pujols. Yet, a month into the season, Pujols is the hitter who has seen more two-strike counts. Kemp has thrived in such situations. Pujols has not (see chart).

Let’s go even deeper on Pujols’ two-strike issues.

Pujols has 98 plate appearances this season; 53 of those plate appearances have ended in two-strike counts (55 percent). From 2009-11, 41 percent of Pujols’ plate appearances went to two strikes.

What led to this?

Early in at-bats, Pujols is fouling off more pitches and taking more strikes. He is putting the ball in play on less than 40 percent of swings in early counts; usually, he puts about half of his swings early in an at-bat into play.

There are other areas in which the difference between Kemp and Pujols is distinct.

• Kemp has been able to sneak the ball through holes, getting hits on 40 percent of his groundballs. Pujols is hitting right into infield shifts, with just three hits on 30 groundballs.

• Kemp is crushing breaking pitches (11-26, 2 HR, 5 RBI) and Pujols is making no impact against them (4-26, 0 XBH, 1 RBI).

Normally the right-handed Pujols would be crushing left-handed pitchers. Last year he hit nearly .300 and slugged over .600 against southpaws, but in April this year he is just 4-for-25 and has a slugging percentage of .240.

From 2001-11, Pujols entered the month of May with at least five home runs. So how many HR can be expected from Pujols the rest of the season?

According to Elias, seven players have finished with 40 home runs after not going deep once in April. The most was 54 by Babe Ruth in 1920. The most recent was Alex Rodriguez, who hit 42 HR in 1999.

Amidst the NFL Draft craziness, the baseball season continues tonight, with the top two finishers in last year's AL Cy Young voting on the mound, looking to continue their hot streaks.

In New York, a Yankee tries to match Roger Clemens’ team record. Plus the Pirates are the first team to accomplish something, and it’s not entirely bad.

Jered Weaver Owns April
The Cy Young runner-up a season ago, Jered Weaver faces the Indians tonight, looking to continue his strong early-season pitching.

Weaver is 13-0 in his last 17 starts in March and April, the longest streak of undefeated starts in March and April since Brad Penny went 17 straight from 2004 to 2008 (thanks, Elias).

The last guy to go undefeated in 18 such starts was Pedro Martinez. The last pitcher to win 14 consecutive decisions in March and April was the always-menacing Dave Stewart, who won 20 straight decisions from 1987 to 1991.

Weaver’s career ERA of 2.66 in March and April is the third-lowest among active pitchers, trailing Mariano Rivera and Zack Greinke.

Pitching Duel in the Bronx
The man who topped Weaver in the 2011 Cy Young voting was Justin Verlander, who is 21-3 with a 1.98 ERA since last June 1.

Verlander’s counterpart on the mound tonight is Ivan Nova, who is 15-1 with a 3.31 ERA in that time span. Nova has won his last 15 decisions, which Elias says is the longest for any pitcher entering a start against a defending Cy Young winner

A win tonight would tie Nova with Roger Clemens for most consecutive decisions won in Yankees history, but he'll need help from an offense that has struggled against Verlander.

Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher all have career averages below .170 against Verlander.

The exception in the Yankees lineup is Derek Jeter, who is 12-33 (.364) in his career against Verlander.

Dead Ball Era in Pittsburgh?
In the National League, the Pittsburgh Pirates are in the midst of a quirky and remarkable run.

Neither team has scored more than five runs in any of Pittsburgh’s first 18 games, the longest streak to start a season in MLB history.

The Pirates are still 13 games away from matching the longest season-opening streak without scoring five runs, which was 31 games by the 1972 Milwaukee Brewers.

Thirty-one games is also the longest season-opening streak of allowing five or fewer runs, accomplished previously by the 1972 Twins. The last team to start with 18 such games was the Athletics in 1981. Pittsburgh looks to best that mark tonight in Atlanta.

Paul Carr contributed to this post.

Albert Pujols continues to struggle since joining the Los Angeles Angels, going 0-for-3 on Wednesday as the Angels lost 3-2 to the Tampa Bay Rays.

Pujols has not recorded a hit in his last 19 at-bats. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that is the longest hitless streak of his major-league career. He failed to get a hit in 18 consecutive at-bats from August to September in 2010. It is only the fourth time in his career that Pujols has gone more than 15 straight at-bats without a hit.

Dating to last season, he has failed to hit a home run in his last 24 regular-season games, the second-longest streak in his career. Pujols had 26 straight games without a home run last season.

The home run drought to start the season has reached 72 at-bats. Pujols hit 37 homers last year for the St. Louis Cardinals. Elias reports that his season-opening drought is the second-longest to begin a season by a player who hit at least 35 home runs for a different team the previous season. After hitting 46 home runs for the Washington Nationals in 2006, Alfonso Soriano didn’t hit a homer until his 75th at-bat for the Chicago Cubs in 2007.

The problem for Pujols this season has been offspeed pitches. After hitting .302 with 12 home runs against such pitches last season, he is just 3-for-31 with no extra-base hits so far this year. His batting average against offspeed pitches was ninth in the majors last year; so far this year, he’s barely in the top 200.

He has been struggling to hold off on slow pitches outside the strike zone. After chasing only 28 percent of offspeed pitches outside the strike zone last year, he has swung on 31 of 62 such pitches so far this year. Two of his three hits against offspeed pitches this season are on pitches outside the strike zone … on those inside the zone, he is just 1-for-19.

Around the Diamond
• Clay Buchholz allowed five earned runs in 5⅓ innings against the Minnesota Twins. He’s the only Boston Red Sox pitcher in the Live Ball Era to allow at least five earned runs in each of his first four appearances in a season.

• Robbie Ross picked up another win in relief for the Texas Rangers. Ross is the first pitcher in major-league history to record four wins in the first six appearances of his career as a relief pitcher.

• David Wright hit a two-run homer in sixth inning to move past Darryl Strawberry for the most RBI in New York Mets history. Strawberry had 733 for the club, and Wright now has 735.

• Jordan Zimmermann allowed a run in the fifth inning for the Nationals, snapping a franchise-record 26-inning scoreless streak for Nationals starting pitchers.

• Pablo Sandoval extended his hitting streak to 18 games. That ties the Giants franchise record for longest hit streak to start a season. Johnny Rucker hit safely in 18 straight games to start the 1945 season.

Ryan Feldman contributed to this post

The Tampa Bay Rays play host to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the middle game of a three-game set tonight (ESPN2, 7 ET). The two teams are moving in opposite directions – the Rays have won five of six, while the Angels have lost five of seven.

What’s Wrong with the Angels?
The Angels have stumbled out of the gate, falling to 6-11 to start the season after their 5-0 loss Tuesday night. The Angels are in last place in the AL West, already 7.5 games behind the division-leading Texas Rangers. So what’s not working for LA?

• Scored 3.9 runs per game, 10th in the AL.

• Drawn a walk about once every 15 plate appearances, the 12th ranked walk rate in the AL in front of only the Seattle Mariners and Baltimore Orioles.

• Correspondingly, the Angels have a team .304 on-base percentage, 11th in the AL.

• Have hit an AL-low 11 home runs so far this year.

What’s Wrong with Albert Pujols?
Pujols has stumbled out of the gate in his first season with the Angels. After going 0-for-4 Tuesday night, he is homerless in his last 23 regular-season games dating back to last season, the second longest streak in his career (went 26 straight homerless games in 2011).

Pujols is also in danger of going hitless in five straight games. He’s done that just once before in his career – September of his 2001 rookie season!

Last season, Pujols batted .301 in at-bats ending with a curveball or slider, a mark that ranked 10th-best in the majors. He chased only 23 percent of those pitches out of the zone – better than the league average of 31 percent.

This season, Pujols has batted only .091 in at-bats ending with curves and sliders. He already has seven strikeouts on those pitches and he’s chased a whopping 58 percent of curves and sliders out of the zone.

Pitching Matchup
C.J. Wilson is 4-0 with a 2.25 ERA in 40 career innings pitched against the Rays. Current Tampa Bay players have hit just .139 in their careers against Wilson with just three extra base hits. And four current Rays regulars are hitless in their careers against Wilson.

• B.J. Upton: 0-for-17, 8 K
• Desmond Jennings: 0-for-10, 3 K
• Jose Molina: 0-for-10, 3 K
• Carlos Pena: 0-for-8, 1 K

Jeremy Hellickson has seen his strikeout rate drop progressively in each season of his career so far (8.2 in 2010; 5.6 in 2011; 4.2 so far this season).

Last year in his only start against the Angels, he took the loss but struck out a season-high 10 batters in 5⅔ innings, including three strikeouts each of Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells.

Before this season, Hellickson’s two most effective out pitches were his curveball and changeup. He got to the most swings and misses on these pitches and hitters chased over 40 percent of his changeups out of the zone.

However, so far this season, Hellickson has curtailed the use of his two most effective pitches in favor of a new cutter.

He’s thrown the cutter for a strike at a high rate, but he’s also allowed a .953 OPS on at-bats ending with the pitch, the worst results of any of his pitches this season.

Stat of the Game
Evan Longoria has continued on a tear he began starting last September. Since then, Longoria is batting .309 with a .451 on-base percentage, ranking him third in the majors over that span, trailing only Miguel Cabrera (.470) and Matt Kemp (.456). In addition, his 1.036 OPS is fourth highest in the AL since last September.