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The month of April ended in style when it came to home runs. There were 50 home runs hit on Tuesday, the most in a single day since Sept. 11, 2007 when there was also 50 home runs.

No team had more than the Cleveland Indians, who hit seven against the Philadelphia Phillies, including three off Roy Halladay. The 50 home runs measured a combined 19,992 feet, or just under 3.8 miles.

Here’s a look at some of the HR highlights from the first month of the season.

Player of the Month
Justin Upton hit a league-leading 12 home runs in April, two shy of the MLB record for the most in March/April. None of Upton’s home runs were cheap -- each one traveled more than 400 feet. His longest of the month came on Opening Day against Cole Hamels. It went 460 feet, Upton’s 12th home run of at least 450 feet in the past four seasons. That’s tied with Giancarlo Stanton for the most in MLB over that span.

Upton’s average home run distance in April was 423.5 feet, that’s the highest this season among players with at least six home runs. Upton hit eight home runs in April that went at least 420 feet, four more than any other player and three more than he had all of last season. This is resurgence for Upton, who led baseball in 2011 with 18 home runs that traveled at least 420 feet.

Unlikely HR of the Month
On April 13, Nick Swisher hit a 397-foot home run at Progressive Field in Cleveland off Chris Sale. The ball cleared the 19-foot left field fence by about 10 feet.



The home run appeared to be a clear no doubter. However, at the time the wind was blowing 23 MPH out to left, which pushed the ball an extra 69 feet. If there was no wind, the ball would have landed about 14 feet shy of the warning track and would not have been a home run in any major-league park. It was the most wind-aided home run since David Wright’s home run was pushed 72 feet by the wind in Citi Field on April 24, 2011.

Since the start of the 2006 season, only eight other home runs have been aided more by the wind than Swisher’s.

Longest of the Month
There was a tie between the Cubs Anthony Rizzo and the Angels Mark Trumbo. On April 18 against Alexi Ogando, Rizzo hit a career-long 475-foot home run to right-center field. It was the longest home run hit at Wrigley Field since 2008.

On April 29, Trumbo matched Rizzo, hitting a career-long 475-foot shot off Dan Straily to left-center field at the O.co Coliseum. It was Trumbo’s third home run longer than 470 feet in the last three seasons, the most in baseball. There are only three other players (Giancarlo Stanton, Prince Fielder, Nelson Cruz) who have hit multiple 470-foot home runs during that time span, and 19 total such home runs. In addition, Trumbo’s home run was the longest hit at Oakland in the past eight seasons.

Almost 800 home runs were hit in the month of April, and with the ESPN Home Run Tracker you can see where each one landed, how many were more than 450 feet and how many barely left the yard. (Scroll to the bottom of the graphic to search for team, player and pitcher home runs.)

Manny Machado made an error of aggressiveness in Sunday’s loss to the Oakland Athletics, throwing away a bunt in which he charged and tried to get the out at third base.

But through the first half-season of Machado’s career, the Orioles third baseman has done more than his share to make up for that mistake.

Defensive Runs Saved is a stat devised by Baseball Info Solutions (BIS) that measures a fielder’s ability to turn batted balls into outs and do other defensive things specific to his position. (In the case of a third baseman, defend bunts and convert double plays.)

Since the start of last season, Machado ranks fourth among third basemen in Defensive Runs Saved -- and that’s despite playing about half as many innings as everyday players like David Wright and Adrian Beltre. The other primary defensive metric (UZR) also has Machado ranked near the top of his position.

Keep in mind that the player Machado was replacing as the primary third baseman, Wilson Betemit, finished 2012 credited with costing the Orioles six runs with his defense (-6 Defensive Runs Saved). The player originally intended for the position in 2012, Mark Reynolds, cost the Orioles seven runs in 142 innings.

In what aspects of third-base defense does Machado excel? A major league scout said of him:

"He is outstanding in all directions, with pop ups, relays, backhands and agility plays. He has a great throwing arm from all angles on the field, great feet, instinct-reactions and body control."

Let’s break down Machado’s skills with some numbers.

Range
How can we put a value on the idea that Machado is “outstanding in all directions"?

Simply put: Machado gets to a lot of the balls he should, and a lot of the ones he shouldn’t.

Revised Zone Rating (RZR) is a defensive stat that looks how often a fielder turns batted balls into outs when the ball is hit into an an area (a zone) at a speed in which players at his position convert more than 50 percent of balls into outs.

Through Monday, Machado’s RZR ranks eighth of the 35 players who have played at least 500 innings at third base since the start of 2012.

Machado has also made 30 ”Out of Zone plays” –- meaning he got an out in an area that no more than half the third basemen turned those batted balls into outs.

Machado’s rate of Innings per Out of Zone play ranks fourth-best among those 35 third basemen.

Let's also note this:

The Orioles left-side defense has performed considerably better overall since Machado’s arrival. Remember, their starting shortstop, J.J. Hardy, won a Gold Glove last season and ranks among the best at that spot.

Since Machado’s recall, the Orioles have converted 77.4 percent of ground balls that on video review were either over or to the left of the second base bag into outs in that span, compared to 72.3 percent prior to his joining the team.

Over a full season, that equates to taking away nearly 60 would-be baserunners, just on ground balls to that part of the field.

Throwing arm
BIS provided a list of the 10 plays that had the most defensive value in impacting his Defensive Runs Saved total.

Almost all of them were ones in which Machado showed off his ability to go to his left and unleashed a cannon-like throw from an awkward position to rob a potential base hit.

The arm that was great from all angles has allowed him to get even the speediest of batters (including Coco Crisp and B.J. Upton) out on those plays.

Instinct -Reactions
The play Machado is best known for happened in an extra-inning win against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sept. 12, 2012, when he fielded a slow roller, faked a throw to first, then turned around and trapped the potential go-ahead run in a rundown off third base.

BIS classifies plays into about 30 categories of Good Fielding Plays and 50 categories of Defensive Misplays & Errors and that was one of 28 plays that qualified as “Good Fielding Plays” by video review. Since Aug. 9, 2012 that’s tied with Pablo Sandoval for the second-most of any third baseman in the majors, trailing only Ryan Zimmerman’s 41.

Not bad for someone who played a total of two minor-league games at third base.

As the scout also said. "It's going to be tough to move him off that position."

Even with only one month of baseball in the books, it’s never too early to start trying to guess the division winners.

Does being in first place on May 1 guarantee an October finish atop the division, too?

Baseball began crowning six division champions in 1995, but that season started in late April, so the first full season of the current division format came in 1996.

Since 1996, there have been 102 division champions, and 53 of them were in first place on May 1. That’s only 51 percent -- barely half the teams -- which hardly guarantees a division title at the end of the season.

Last year, of the six division leaders on May 1, only the Washington Nationals went on to win the division. The other division leaders were the Tampa Bay Rays (finished third), Cleveland Indians (finished fourth), Texas Rangers (finished second), St. Louis Cardinals (finished second) and Los Angeles Dodgers (finished second).

It was the third time in this 17-season sample that only one division winner was on first place on May 1. It also happened in 2001 and 2002. There still hasn’t been a season yet in this era in which each division winner was different from the May 1 leader.

Looking further into the numbers, the likelihood of being in first place on May 1 and at the end of the season have been even lower this millennium.

Since 2001, only 30 of 72 (42 percent) eventual division champs were in first place on May 1. During this time period, the only year in which five of the six division winners were also atop the standings on May 1 was in 2003.

And the disparity has been even greater in the past four seasons (2009-12) when only one-third of the end-of-season division winners (8 of 24) were in first place entering May.

Compare that to the first five full seasons of the new format (from 1996 to 2000) in which 23 of 30 teams (77 percent) that won the division were also in front on May 1.

In three of those five seasons, five of the six division champs at the end of the season were also leading on May 1, and no fewer than four division winners in each season led at the start of May, too.

The Atlanta Braves host the Washington Nationals at 7:00 ET tonight on ESPN. The Braves won the first three meetings between the teams this season, outscoring the Nationals 18-5 in the process. Among those three wins was a victory over Monday’s starter Stephen Strasburg, the second of what’s turned into a four-game losing streak for Strasburg overall.

After their great start to the season, the Braves have also hit a rough patch of late. Atlanta started an MLB-best 12-1, but has gone 3-8 since and is currently riding a four-game losing streak after being swept against the Detroit Tigers over the weekend.

So what can we expect on Monday night? Let’s run through some notes to know:

BRYCE IS NICE

Bryce Harper currently leads the big leagues in OPS (1.200) with two games to play in April. At 20 years old, he could become the youngest player to lead MLB in OPS through April since 1965 when Ed Kranepool of the Mets also did so at age 20 (1.161).

Harper had just one hit in 10 at-bats against the Braves in their series earlier this month, but his five career home runs against Atlanta are tied for his second-most against a single team. He has six career homers against the Marlins.

COULD UPTON ONE-UP HIM?

Across the diamond, Braves outfielder Justin Upton is third in the big leagues in OPS at 1.171 and he leads all of baseball with 12 home runs. He’s the sixth player in major-league history to hit at least 12 homers during the month of April and he’s just two shy of the April record shared by Alex Rodriguez (2007) and Albert Pujols (2006).

Since the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966, Upton’s April is one of five months in which a Brave has hit at least 12 HR and marks the most any Brave has had during the month of April.

STRASBURG’S STRUGGLES

(Read full post)

Let's review another week in statistical marvels and oddities in Major League Baseball.

Feat of the Week: Anibal Sanchez 17 K
There were plenty of impressive strikeout-related performances this week (we’ll note one more below), but none topped Detroit Tigers pitcher Anibal Sanchez who set a franchise record with an 8-inning, 17-strikeout outing against the Atlanta Braves on Friday.

It was the first 17-whiff game since Brandon Morrow's one-hitter against the Rays on August 8, 2010, and the first that was not a complete game since Johan Santana two-hit Texas for eight innings on August 19, 2007.

Two Atlanta starters-- Dan Uggla and Freddie Freeman-- had four strikeouts each, just the second time in the Live Ball Era that a pair of Braves have done that in the same game. The others were Greg Norton and Gregor Blanco in 2008-- and that was in a 17-inning game.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Tigers piled up 15 hits and won via shutout 10-0.

The last pitcher to get 10 or more runs of support in a 17-strikeout game was Sandy Koufax against the Chicago Cubs on April 24, 1962.

The four-whiff wonder
Not only did he get his first career base hit in Sunday's game, but Reds pitcher Tony Cingrani pulled off the rare four-strikeout inning when Denard Span reached on a wild pitch. He's just the fifth pitcher in franchise history with a four-strikeout frame. The last was Frankie Rodriguez, on July 22, 2001, against the Marlins.

It was just the 67th documented occurrence of a four-strikeout inning in major-league history; only the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians (6 each) have done it more frequently than the Reds.

Cingrani also is the fifth pitcher currently in the major leagues to have an 11-strikeout, no-runs outing no more than six games into his career.

The other four are Mariano Rivera (1995 against a Chicago White Sox team that included ESPN’s John Kruk!), Oliver Perez (2002), Matt Moore (2011) and Matt Harvey (2013).

Another walk-off grand slam
This week Jordany Valdespin became the 12th player in New York Mets history to play all three outfield positions in the same game.

But what about his walk-off grand slam?

It was already the second one this season; Matt Wieters had one for the Orioles last week, and both have been in tie games in the 10th inning.

Last year there were only three walk-off slams total, all in the ninth inning.

Alex Gordon also had an extra-inning slam this week, the first for the Kansas City Royals since Danny Tartabull had one against the New York Yankees in 1991.

Beyond the weird weather- Braves/Rockies oddities
In Tuesday's frigid doubleheader in Colorado, both Colorado Rockies starters (Jeff Francis and Jon Garland) gave up three home runs as the Atlanta Braves swept the twinbill.

It was the first time that starters for the same team gave up three or more homers in both ends of a doubleheader since August 29, 1998. Dennis Springer and Bryan Rekar managed that for the newly-founded Tampa Bay Devil Rays against the Detroit Tigers.

Although he did not homer, Reed Johnson had a 4-for-4 day with three doubles in the day game of that doubleheader.

It was the first time a player in an Atlanta uniform had three extra-base hits, no runs and no RBI in a game; the last Brave with such a line was Frank Torre (Joe’s brother) for the Milwaukee Braves against the Brooklyn Dodgers on July 14, 1957.

Scorekeeping watch: An unusually short shutout
The Oakland Athletics – Boston Red Sox game was called after seven innings on Tuesday night due to rain, with the Athletics winning by a 13-0 count.

There hadn't been a shutout of 13 runs or more, in a game that lasted seven innings or less, in more than 60 years.

On August 16, 1952, the Dodgers ran up 15 runs on the Phillies at Ebbets Field before the game was called with one out in the top of the seventh.

Carl Crawford homered twice on Sunday, and with 100 plate appearances behind him for 2013, this seems like a good time to look at different aspects of his performance.

Crawford is trying to get back to being the player he was with the Tampa Bay Rays. The previous two seasons were hindered by ineffectiveness and eventually reconstructive elbow sugery.

Let’s go through a few important parts to his game in 2013.

He’s chasing less
Crawford has regularly been a free swinger, but in 2013 he seems to be more willing to let pitches out of the strike zone go without a hack.

He’s seen nearly 200 so far this season and has gone after them at a rate of about once every five pitches (21 percent).

That’s a considerable difference from Crawford, even when he was going well in Tampa Bay. His chase rate over the previous four seasons has typically hovered at around 35 percent.

Crawford has also been very discerning when it comes to pitches on the outer-half of the plate, or just off the outside corner, as the “chase rate” numbers are very similar to his overall numbers.

His first homer Sunday came on a pitch on the outside edge, his third homer against an outer-half pitch this season. He totaled five homers against those pitches over the previous two seasons.

He’s been a first-pitch masher
The other thing about that first home run is that it came on the first pitch he saw from Kyle Lohse. Crawford hit .426 in the first pitch of at bats in his last two seasons with the Rays. That dropped to .258 in 2011 and 2012.

This season, Crawford has started hot against first pitches. He is 8-for-11 against them with a triple and a homer.

He’s been comfortable against the offspeed pitch
Crawford’s second homer Sunday came against an 0-2 slider from Lohse, the third time this season he’s hit an offspeed pitch out. Crawford is 16-for-42 (.381 batting average) against offspeed pitches this season.

That includes 13 hits in 26 at-bats that ended with an offspeed pitch in the strike zone. He's swinging more often than usual against those pitches and letting more of the out-of-zone ones go by.

What to watch for: Defense
Crawford rated as one of the game’s best defenders statistically from 2008 to 2010, but did not put up good defensive stats in 2011 and 2012 and is best remembered for being unable to handle a line drive on the final play of the 2011 Red Sox season.

Earlier in the week Crawford had a couple of dicey defensive moments against the Mets, pulling up short on one fly ball that hit the outfield wall, and failing to corral an important line drive in the ninth inning in another instance.

But so far, the early returns on his defensive stats have been respectable. He entered Sunday with only one other play judged a “Defensive Misplay” on video review this season.

Crawford, who averaged 10 Defensive Runs Saved per season from 2008 to 2010, has been credited with one so far in 2013.

Justin Havens also contributed research to this post

Five stats you’ll likely hear quite a bit more about on tonight’s telecast of the Atlanta Braves and Detroit Tigers at 8 pm ET on ESPN Inc

1-- Justin Upton has 12 home runs in his first 23 games with the Braves. That’s two shy of the record for most home runs in April (shared by Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols).

The Elias Sports Bureau notes that the only other player with that many home runs in his first 23 games with a franchise was Glenallen Hill (also 12) with the 2000 Yankees after being acquired shortly before the deadline.

Upton has seven two-strike homers this season. He had six in 2012.

The Braves have reaped the benefits of power this season. They are 15-1 in games in which they homer, 0-7 when homerless.

2-- Tigers starter Doug Fister (3-0) looks to be the 6th Tigers pitcher in the past 90 years to finish April 4-0 or better. Fister has a 2.10 career ERA in April, the lowest among any active pitcher with at least 90 career innings pitched for the month.

3-- After posting a 6.20 ERA over the first 3 months of the 2012 season, Braves starter Mike Minor has turned it around significantly. Including this season, he has a 2.08 ERA since the 2012 All-Star Break. Only teammate Kris Medlen (1.50) has a lower ERA among starters in that span.

4-- Miguel Cabrera is looking to be the third right-handed hitter to win 3 straight batting titles, joining Honus Wagner (four straight from 1906 to 1909) and Rogers Hornsby (1920 to 1925). Since the start of 2008, Cabrera ranks tied for second in the majors in home runs, first in RBI, and second in OPS.

5-- Braves shortstop Andrelton Simmons might be the best defensive shortstop in baseball. He played in only 49 games last season, but his defensive impact was so great, he ranked second among SS in Defensive Runs Saved with 19 in only 426 innings.

Simmons is part of a new wave of shortstop prospects hailing from the tiny island of Curacao (pop. 142,180). That’s about the population of Dayton, Ohio. He and Didi Gregorious of the Arizona Diamondbacks currently have starting jobs.

Three more Curacao-born shortstops (Jurickson Profar, Xander Bogaerts and Jonathan Schoop) rank among Keith Law’s Top 50 minor league prosepcts.

Let’s go inside the longball and summarize some of our best notes on the day’s most notable homer-hitters.

Harper and Ott … expect that a lot
Bryce Harper’s ninth home run came in the Nationals 24th team game. The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that the only player under age 21 to hit more home runs than that within his team's first 24 games is Hall of Famer Mel Ott, who had 10 for the 1929 Giants.

Harper has played in 23 of the Nationals 24 games. It took Harper 75 games played to hit his ninth home run last season.

Harper now has 31 home runs for his career, just over halfway to Ott’s total of 61, which ranks as the most for someone before they turned 21.

What has led to Harper’s success this season? Dominance of the inner half of the plate has been a big part of it. He’s 16-for-32 in at-bats that end with pitches on the inner-half of the plate, or off the inside corner.

Harper’s home run on Saturday came on a pitch knee-high, on the inside corner. Seven of his home runs this season came on inner-half pitches. He had nine such home runs last season.

Justin Upton keeps pace
Justin Upton hit a 423-foot home run in the Atlanta Braves loss to the Detroit Tigers.

That basically matched Upton’s average homer distance for the season, a major-league best 423.5 feet

All 12 of Upton's home runs have measured at least 400 feet.

Upton is two home runs shy for the major-league record for the most by the end of April. Albert Pujols set the mark with 14 for the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals and Alex Rodriguez tied that with 14 the following season for the New York Yankees.

Upton’s success has come against pitches in the lower-half of the strike zone, or below the knees. Saturday’s homer was his 10th against a lower-half pitch. He had a dozen home runs against pitches to that area last season.

Stanton finally hits one out
Giancarlo Stanton’s first home run of the season came in the Miami Marlins 18th game of the season and was a prodigious blast, calculated at 440 feet by ESPN Home Run Tracker.

Stanton has nine home runs of at least 440 feet since the start of 2012, tied with Miguel Cabrera for most in the majors.

It actually took Stanton longer to hit his first home run last season (20 games). The homer was only his second extra-base hit in his last 59 plate appearances.

Stanton homered against an inner-half pitch, something he did 21 times last season. He averaged a homer for every 42 pitches to that area last season. He has one in 153 inner-half pitches this season.

Stanton’s biggest issue this season is that he hasn’t gotten many pitches to hit. As a result, similar to past seasons, he’s extended his swing area a bit. That’s gotten him into trouble. He’s made 29 outs this season against pitches out of the strike zone, tied for eighth-most in the majors.

When Matt Harvey climbs the mound tonight against the Dodgers (7 ET on ESPN), he'll attempt to become the third pitcher in Mets history to go 5-0 or better in the month of April.

The company he'll attempt to join has four Cy Young awards and more than 5,400 career strikeouts between them: Dwight Gooden, who did it in 1988, and Pedro Martinez (2006).

It starts with the fastball...
Harvey is averaging almost 95 MPH on his fastball this season, second in the majors among qualified starters.

Incredibly, the top three in that category all play in the NL East and all three are under 25 years old: Harvey, Stephen Strasburg and Jose Fernandez.

The fastball has been Harvey's strikeout pitch. He's racked up 19 strikeouts from the fastball alone this season, second in the majors to only Shelby Miller.

And Harvey has shown the ability to ramp up the velocity as the situations get tougher.

With the bases empty, his average fastball velocity is 94.6 MPH. With runners in scoring positions and two outs, he's bumped that average velocity to 95.5 MPH.

In his last start, Friday against Strasburg, Harvey had some of his best heat. His average fastball sat at 97.2 MPH.


...and sets up the changeup...
That fastball really sets up the changeup, which averages 86.3 MPH, a difference of more than eight MPH from his average fastball.

Only seven starters have a bigger difference between their average fastball and changeup.

...to go with a hard slider
And his slider is nearly as devastating.

Harvey's slider averages 88.8 MPH this season, the fastest average slider among all starters. Harvey's slider has been thrown harder than James Shields' or Madison Bumgarner's slider.

Batters are just 1-19 in at-bats ending against Harvey's slider this season, striking out on it an astonishing 41 percent of the time.

It's the highest strikeout rate of any of his pitches, with the fastball second and the changeup third.

Key matchups against the Dodgers
Carl Crawford is hitting .385 (5-13) with a .923 OPS against changeups this season.

Crawford is having early success this season by laying off pitches outside the strike zone. His chase rate is down to 20 percent this season after hovering in the mid-30s in each of the last four seasons.

Likewise, Matt Kemp is hitting .375 (3-8) with an .875 OPS against changeups this season, his best numbers against any pitch. Overall, Kemp is batting .247 with an OPS of .594 this April.

That's a steep decline from last April when he batted .417 with a 1.383 OPS.

Matt Harvey has some company, both in name and in game.

Matt Moore’s numbers, other than a walk rate that’s a little high, are a near-match for Harvey’s through his first four starts of the season.

Moore, who has managed to be effectively wild through the start of the season was much more effective than wild in his win over the New York Yankees on Monday night.

How He Won
Moore had a few things going for him in shutting down the Yankees.

He retired 15 of the 16 right-handed hitters he faced, allowing only one walk. Righties are 4-for-55, albeit with 10 walks against Moore this season.

He jammed hitters effectively. Moore got 11 outs with pitches on the inner-third of the plate, or off the inside corner

He averaged a season-best 92.7 MPH with his fastball and had his best control of the season with the pitch (65 percent strikes). He then used his changeup as his out pitch. He threw 16 of them (12 for strikes) and they netted seven outs, with no baserunners allowed.

Meet the Matts
The two get it done in different ways, but Harvey and Moore have both been very impressive this season.

Harvey’s numbers are better than Moore’s in a number of regards, but if you stack the two up in a couple of categories, they come up pretty close.

We’ve done so in the chart on the right.

Moore’s biggest issue up until Monday was his inability to go deep into a game. His eight innings against the Yankees matched a career high.

Moore can count himself fortunate for the run support. The Rays had actually lost three of their last five games in which their starter went at least eight innings and allowed two hits or fewer.

Elias Sports Bureau Stat of the Night
Moore is the first pitcher age 23-or-younger to go 4-0 with an ERA of 1.10 in his first four starts of the season since Los Angeles Dodgers phenom Fernando Valenzuela did so in 1981

Tropicana Field has not been a very welcoming host to the New York Yankees and CC Sabathia, but tonight New York has a chance to start reversing that trend when they take on the Tampa Bay Rays (7 ET, ESPN and WatchESPN) in the first game of a three-game set.

New York went 2-7 at Tampa Bay last season and is 9-18 over the last three years at Tropicana Field. From 2007-09, the Yankees won 15 of the 27 games played in Florida against the Rays.

Pitching Matchup
CC Sabathia will take the mound tonight looking to reverse his fortune against the Rays on the road. The Yankees are just 6-12 in Sabathia’s last 18 starts against Tampa Bay, and just 1-7 in his eight starts at Tropicana Field since he joined the team in 2009!

Sabathia has gotten off to a good start this season, going 3-1 with a 2.57 ERA. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Sabathia has never won more than three games in April in his previous 12 career seasons. He won three in April for the Cleveland Indians in 2007 and three of the Yankees in both 2010 and 2012. For all other months combined, he’s won at least four games 20 times.

Opposing Sabathia will be Matt Moore, who is 3-0 with a 1.00 ERA in three starts this season. His fastball has been great this season (he averages 92 MPH on that pitch), but his offspeed pitches have been even better.

However, he’ll have to be careful throwing changeups to Robinson Cano and Vernon Wells, who are hitting .556 (ninth) and .500 (11th) against changeups, respectively, this season.

Offensive Comparison
So far in the early going, these two teams could not be further apart in terms of offensive production. Despite missing Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson and Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees offense keeps humming, and hitting home runs. New York ranks in the top five in baseball in slugging percentage (.467, 2nd), batting average (.273, 3rd), and OBP (.339, 5th).

With all the power the Yankees are missing – nine of their top 10 home run hitters from last season are not on the roster – power was expected to be at a premium. However, they have already hit 27 home runs so far this season, good for third-best in the majors.

As for the Rays, they are at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to offense this season. Part of it is due to an incredibly low batting average on balls in play (.260, last in the majors).

Stat of the Game
Evan Longoria is 14-for-39 (.359) with three doubles and five home runs against Sabathia. That is Longoria’s most home runs against any pitcher and only Alfonso Soriano (six) has hit more home runs against Sabathia than Longoria (Jermaine Dye has also hit five home runs against Sabathia).

In terms of unusual baseball plays, nothing will top Jean Segura's baserunning misadventures, on which our colleague Jayson Stark wrote the definitive treatises.

But there were some other statistically amazing things to happen in baseball in the last seven days. Here's a run-through.

Whiff City: Tigers, Mariners go Strikeout-Wild
The 14-inning Tigers-Mariners game not only featured five strikeouts by Prince Fielder, it had 35 others as well. Elias reports that it became just the third game since 1900 with 40 or more strikeouts, and the shortest of those games by inning (the others were 15 and 20).

Seventeen of the 18 starters whiffed at least once, setting a new season high (it happened three times last year).

Starting pitchers Max Scherzer and Felix Hernandez each went eight innings and struck out 12, the first pair of starters to do that since Mike Mussina and Pedro Martinez dueled on May 24, 2001.

And it was the first time neither one got a decision since Mark Langston (10 innings 12 strikeouts) and Randy Johnson (15 strikeouts in nine innings) met on September 16, 1992.

The 21 strikeouts by Mariners pitching also tied their franchise record, last achieved in another Randy Johnson start on Opening Day 1996. And eventually the 82 strikeouts in the series, per Elias, was the most by any teams in the modern era in a three-game set.

Getting back to Fielder, he became the first Tiger in the live-ball era with back-to-back four-strikeout games, and the first AL player to do so since Jay Buhner in 1990.

Saturday was historic for bad starting pitching
The Tigers really should shuffle next year's rotation so that Rick Porcello isn't pitching on the third Saturday in April. He allowed nine runs-- all earned-- while getting just two outs and throwing 47 pitches to 11 batters.

No pitcher had given up nine runs and 10 hits while getting a maximum of 3 outs since... Rick Porcello did it on the third Saturday of April last season! That was the first game of a doubleheader with Texas.

Not to be outdone, Phil Humber gave up eight runs while recording just one out as the Indians batted around in the 1st inning in Houston Saturday night. Humber wasn't even the first Astros starter to leave after one out this week.

Erik Bedard allowed six earned runs and retired just one batter on Monday. The Astros hadn't had two starters record no more than one out in the same SEASON since 2004, and had never had it happen within five days of each other.

The last pitching staff to pull off that dubious feat was the 2000 Rockies, courtesy of Pedro Astacio and Julian Tavarez. And that gets an asterisk because Astacio left the game after being hit with a line drive to lead off the game.

The last team to have two starters allow six or more earned runs while recording a max of one out, within a six-day span, was the 1979 Cubs (Lynn McGlothen and Dennis Lamp).

The capper on this: It was the first time in baseball’s modern era that two starting pitchers allowed at least eight runs with less than one inning pitched.

Feat of the Week: Quasi-cycles
Rockies leftfielder Carlos Gonzalez hit for the cycle on Tuesday. Sort of. Colorado played a doubleheader with the Mets because of snow the day before.In the day game against the Mets, Gonzalez tripled and homered. In the night game he had a double and two singles.

He's the first player to get the homer and triple in one game of a doubleheader and the double and single in the other game, since Stephen Drew of the Diamondbacks in 2006.

Also cycle-worthy: The Brewers first five batters on Friday went error-single-homer-double-triple. So the Brewers, as a team, had already hit for the cycle before making a single out.

They were the first team to pull that off since the final weekend of 2006. The Royals' first four hitters (Joey Gathright, Esteban Germán, David DeJesus, and Mike Sweeney) went double-single-triple-homer to lead off a 9-6 win over Detroit.

Scorecard Watch: An unusual double play
Last week, we had a triple play that was unique to baseball scoring-wise. Saturday we had something that sounds more rare than it was-- an unassisted double play turned by Rays centerfielder Desmond Jennings.

Elias tells us that it’s the first “8U” in baseball since Mike Cameron had one in 2003.

Matt Kemp righted himself this weekend, at least a little bit, with a pair of three-hit games against the Baltimore Orioles, including one in Sunday’s win.

But what exactly is going on with Kemp through these first few weeks of the season?

Let’s take a closer look.

Power not Kemp-like
Kemp, who had surgery to replace a torn labrum in his left shoulder last offseason, has not hit the ball hard in 2013.

The video-trackers from Inside Edge chart something known as “hard-hit average” with their definition of a hard-hit ball being subjective, but unified such that all trackers should be in agreement.

When Kemp hit the ball from 2010 to 2012, his “hard-hit average” was .343, meaning that 34.3 percent of the balls he hit were hit hard.

This season, he has 11 hard-hit ball in the 48 times he’s hit the ball—a .220 well-hit average, boosted by two hard-hit balls this weekend.

Had Kemp been performing to his 2010 to 2012 rate, he should have had 16 hard-hit balls, or five more than he actually has.

Trouble with the slow stuff
Kemp is also dealing with some early-season trouble with offspeed pitches. He’s missed on 29 of the 57 swings he’s taken against them so far and netted four hits on the 127 he’s seen (one of every 32). From 2010 to 2012 (an admittedly much larger sample) he’s averaged one hit every 18 pitches seen.

Much of this has come against right-handed pitching. He is 1-for-17 against right-handers when an at-bat ends with an offspeed pitch.

Inner-half issues
Though Kemp is known for hitting the ball with power to all fields, through the first three weeks of the season, Kemp has done little against the pitches on the inner half of the plate, or that jammed him off the inside corner.

Kemp hit 35 home runs and had 36 other extra-base hits against pitches to that area over the last two seasons.

But in 2013, though he’s putting balls into play at the same rate as usual over the last three seasons, he’s not hitting it in an area where it has a chance to go out of the park.

Kemp has only hit two inner-half pitches in the air to left field this season. He’s seen 115 such pitches.

In the previous two seasons, he did so once for every 21 inner-half pitches he saw.

Again, the samples are small, but these are early indicators of things that Kemp figures to be working on to get back to the guy who was the best hitter in the game for the month of April exactly a year ago.

New York Mets starting pitcher Matt Harvey said earlier this week that he was very keyed up to match up with Washington Nationals starter Stephen Strasburg on Friday night.

Thus far this season, Harvey has proved to be the better of the two, and Friday did nothing to change that.

Let’s run through the accolades for Harvey, whose 102 strikeouts in his first 14 appearances are the third-most in Mets history, trailing only Dwight Gooden (107) and Nolan Ryan (103).

What made him so good Friday?
Harvey clearly was keyed up. He averaged a career-high 96.3 mph on his fastball and was able to do so without overthrowing.

He threw his heater for strikes at a 75 percent rate, the second-best strike rate he’s had with the pitch in any start. In fact, this was the first start in Harvey’s career in which more than half of the fastballs taken by the opposing team were called strikes (15 of 29).

The Nationals gave Harvey a lefty-laden lineup to face, and he retired 14 of the 17 left-handed hitters.

Lefties are 6-for-60 with five walks against Harvey this season. Bryce Harper was 0-for-3 against Harvey on Friday and is 0-for-6 against him for his career.

Harvey had a very sharp breaking slider Friday. He threw the pitch 26 times (the most he’s thrown it in any start) and got six outs with it, yielding just one baserunner.

How does he compare to his teammates?
Harvey is 4-0 with an 0.93 ERA and 0.66 WHIP, with 32 strikeouts in his four starts this season.

The other Mets starters are 2-6 with a 5.68 ERA and 1.68 WHIP, with 36 strikeouts in 11 starts.

How does Harvey compare to Strasburg?
On this night, Harvey was better than his mound counterpart.

Strasburg now has lost three straight starts for the second time in his career.

Strasburg allowed a 438-foot home run to Lucas Duda and a 427-foot homer to Ike Davis, the two longest of his career.

Our video-review service credited the Mets with six “hard-hit” balls against Strasburg and the Nationals with only one against Harvey (Harper’s line drive that was caught by center fielder Jordany Valdespin).

For the season, Harvey has been the better of the two pitchers in just about every respect. We’ve placed some of their numbers in the chart on the right to show notable areas in which Harvey has an edge.

All good streaks must come to an end
Two streaks of note concluded in this contest -- one being the Nationals' eight-game win streak at Citi Field. It was their longest road winning streak against the Mets.

The other was a run of four straight Harvey starts dating back to last season in which he pitched at least seven innings, allowing one run or fewer and three hits or fewer. The Elias Sports Bureau tells us that he’s the only pitcher since 1900 to have four straight such appearances.

The new streak to look at is this one. Harvey now has made five straight starts in which he pitched at least seven innings, allowing one run or fewer and four hits or fewer.

The only pitcher to do that in the past 25 seasons was a pretty good one -- Randy Johnson in 1997.

Stat of the Night
Harvey is the second pitcher in Mets history to win each of his first four starts of a season while allowing one earned run or fewer in each start.

David Cone did it in his first five starts in 1988.