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Baseball’s 16th season of interleague play is under way with celebrations of natural rivalries -- Cubs against White Sox, Orioles against Nationals, A’s against Giants among others -- and in one instance a chance for National League fans to get a load of Josh Hamilton.

The Texas Rangers will travel down I-45 and give Houston Astros fans a look at baseball’s hottest hitter.

Hamilton already has the second-highest career batting average in interleague games, but also comes into this series on a historic tear.

Hamilton’s 16-game hit streak came to an end on Thursday when his day off ended early against Oakland. He pinch-hit and ended up 0-for-2 in a loss to the Athletics, but Hamilton still leads the American League in home runs, RBIs and batting average.

Hamilton’s hitting streak included a week, from May 7-13, that might have been as impressive as any in history.

He hit .467 with nine home runs and 18 RBI and an OPS of 1.963. His week included the 16th four-home run game in baseball history, and his nine home runs for the week matched the combined total hit that week by last season’s nine leading home run hitters: Jose Bautista 3, Curtis Granderson 2, Giancarlo Stanton 2, Dan Uggla 1 and Prince Fielder 1.

Texas and Houston meet each season in home-and-home series in interleague play (competing for the Silver Boot trophy), so the Astros have experienced Hamilton’s bat. Over the past three seasons against Houston pitching, Hamilton is 26-for-65 (.400) with four home runs and 13 RBI.

Yu Darvish picked up his sixth win of the season, tied for most in the majors, as the Texas Rangers beat the Oakland Athletics 4-1.

Darvish has struck out at least seven batters in each of his last five starts after striking out 14 and walking 13 in his first three starts. That’s the longest streak off seven-strikeout games by a Rangers' pitcher since Bobby Witt in 1987.

The key for Darvish has been the most important pitch in baseball – strike one. When he throws a strike on the first pitch to a batter, they hit .146 and strikeout nearly eight times as often as they walk. A 1-0 count leads to a .308 average and more walks than whiffs.

Over his first three starts, Darvish fell behind in the count more often than not. He threw first-pitch strikes to only 42 of 88 batters (48 percent). In his most recent five starts, he has upped that percentage to 60 percent (84 of 139). On Wednesday, he threw a strike on the first pitch to 17 of 28 hitters, right at his average over his last five starts.

This has allowed him to rely less on his fastball and slider and more on his changeup and curveball. In his first three starts, nearly half of his pitches were fastballs and opposing hitters hit .343 against his heat. He was forced to go with the fastball when he fell behind in the count, recording 11 walks and just three strikeouts on the pitch in his first three starts.

In his last five starts, he has used the fastball just over a third of the time while unveiling a changeup that he didn’t throw in the first three contests and increasing his curveball frequency from 11 percent to 17 percent.

For the season, opposing hitters have only 3 hits in 38 at-bats (.079) and have struck out 24 times against his curveball. That’s the most strikeouts that he has recorded with any pitch, even though it’s only the fourth-most used pitch in his arsenal.

Around the Diamond
• Adam Jones hit a game-winning home run in the 15th inning as the Baltimore Orioles won in Kansas City. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he is the first major leaguer with two game-winning home runs in the 15th inning or later in the same season since 1988. That year, Mark McGwire hit game-winners in the 16th inning of back-to-back days in July.

• Also from our friends at Elias, Jamie Moyer became the oldest player to drive in a run in a game. Julio Franco was nearly six months younger when he drove in his final run in 2007.

• Gio Gonzalez gave up his first home run of the season after 48⅓ innings. He was the last qualified starter – meaning a minimum of one inning pitched per team game – to allow a homer this year.

Lee Singer contributed to this post.

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.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, there have been 200,519 regular-season games in the history if Major League Baseball.

After Josh Hamilton's performance on Tuesday, there now have been 16 games in major-league history in which a single player hit four home runs. The chance of seeing a game in which there were four home runs hit by one player is one in 12,532.

Courtesy of Elias, here are some other regular-season, single-game accomplishments by an individual from other major professional leagues that have similar frequencies of occurrence. (You will notice the number four shows up quite a bit.)

NBA
There have been roughly 51,500 games in NBA history. Only four times has a player made 30 field goals or more in a single game. The chance of seeing a game in which one player makes 30 field goals is roughly one in 12,900. The last player to do it was the Golden State Warriors’ Rick Barry on March 26, 1974 against the Portland Trail Blazers.

NHL
There have been roughly 48,000 games in NHL history, or 145,500 periods (not counting overtimes). Only 11 times has a player scored four goals in a single regulation period. So, the chance of seeing a period in which a player scores four goals is roughly 1 in 13,200. The last player to do it was Mario Lemieux on Jan. 26, 1997, against the Montreal Canadiens.

NFL
There have been roughly 13,500 games in NFL history, and only once has a player scored 40 points in a game: Ernie Nevers (Nov. 28, 1929) for the Chicago Cardinals against the Chicago Bears. He scored six touchdowns and kicked four extra points.

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, there have been 7,836 matches, or 15,672 halves of action. Only once has a player scored five goals in a single half, Jermain Defoe on Nov. 22, 2009 for Tottenham against Wigan.

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

1. HAMILTON MAKES HISTORY: Josh Hamilton became the 16th player in MLB history to hit four home runs in a single game on Tuesday night in Baltimore. He is the sixth player in American League history to do it, and the first since Carlos Delgado in 2003.

2. VERY RARE OCCASION: This is the first time in major league history that a pitcher has thrown a perfect game and a hitter has hit four home runs in a game in the same season. Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox threw a perfect game earlier this season.

3. ANOTHER RECORD FOR HAMILTON: Hamilton's 18 total bases are an AL record, one shy of Shawn Green's MLB record of 19 in his four-homer game on May 23, 2002. The previous AL record was 16, done eight times.

4. COLLISON HELPS PACERS ADVANCE: The Indiana Pacers advanced to the Eastern Conference Semifinals with a win over the Orlando Magic. It is Indiana's first series win since the First Round in 2005 versus the Boston Celtics. FROM ELIAS: Darren Collison (23 assists, one turnover in series) is the first player in 22 years to have at least 20 assists and one or fewer turnovers in a playoff series. John Paxson did it for the Chicago Bulls in 1990.

5. THREE NBA TEAMS STILL FIGHTING: The Pacers were able to advance, but the Los Angeles Lakers, Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers were unable to close out their respective series, as each team lost its Game Five and must play on in the First Round. FROM ELIAS: This is the first time three teams avoided elimination on the same day since April 30, 2003. The Detroit Pistons, New Orleans Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers all won Game Fives on that date - only the Pistons used the momentum to come back to win the series (beat Magic in seven games).

6. DEVILS ADVANCE DESPITE ODD TREND: FROM ELIAS: The New Jersey Devils lost the opener of their conference semifinal series against the Philadelphia Flyers, then won the next four games. Even though Philadelphia scored the first goal in each game, New Jersey is the fourth team in NHL history to win four games in which their opponent scored the first goal in one series. Also, the Devils are the first team to do that in four consecutive games in one series. The other clubs with four such wins one series were the 1956 Detroit Red Wings (vs Toronto Maple Leafs), 1991 Edmonton Oilers (vs Calgary Flames) and 1995 Red Wings (vs Chicago Blackhawks).

Josh Hamilton became the 16th player in major-league history to hit four home runs in a game as the Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles 10-3.

The first quarter of the 2012 MLB season has been a good one for historians, with Hamilton’s four-homer game and Philip Humber’s perfect game. This is the first year in MLB history when there has been a perfect game and four-homer game in the season.

Hamilton became the first American League player to go 5-for-5 with four home runs. His 18 total bases are an AL record, surpassing the previous mark of 16 that was done eight times. He fell one base short of Shawn Green’s major-league record of 19 during his four-homer game in 2002.

Hamilton and Matt Kemp each have at least 12 home runs within their team’s first 30 games. It is the first time since 2006 that at least two players did that in the same season. In the 13 seasons from 1994 to 2006, it happened in nine seasons. Prior to that, it hadn’t happened since 1971, when Hank Aaron and Willie Stargell both pulled it off.

With 14 home runs in the Rangers' first 30 games, Hamilton broke the franchise record for homers at this point in the season. Frank Howard hit 12 home runs in the first 30 games in 1968, when the franchise was still the Washington Senators. Since the franchise moved to Texas in 1972, no other player had hit more than 11 homers in the team’s first 30 games.

Hamilton is already more than halfway to his total of 25 home runs from last season. His third-inning home run was his first of the season to the opposite field. He had 13 opposite-field home runs over the previous three seasons.

All four of Hamilton’s homers came with Elvis Andrus on base, netting a total of eight RBI for the game. That is tied for the third-most RBI in a four-homer game, trailing Mark Whiten’s 12 in 1993 and Gil Hodges’ nine in 1950.

It is often said that baseball's glamor position is centerfield, and the best hitters bat third in the order. During the live-ball era (since 1920), only two players have been 4-for-4 or better with three homers and four extra-base hits while playing center and batting third. Hamilton joins Ty Cobb, who went 6-for-6 with three home runs and a double on May 5, 1925.

Around the diamond
• Before he left the game with left hamstring tightness, Will Middlebrooks became the second player since 1900 with an extra-base hit in each of his first five career games. Elias reports that Enos Slaughter also had a five-game streak to start his career in 1938.

• Andrew McCutchen hit his first home run of the season in his 95th at-bat. Last season he had five home runs at the same point in the season.

• Curtis Granderson has reached base in 28 consecutive games, the longest streak in the majors this season. He extended the streak today against James Shields. Granderson entered the game 3-for-46 against Shields; according to Elias, that .065 average was the lowest career mark in any batter-pitcher matchup between active players (minimum 35 at-bats).

Jordany Valdespin's first career hit couldn't have come at a better time. With the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies tied at two in the top of the ninth inning, Valdespin golfed a splitter from Jonathan Papelbon over the fence, snapping a streak of six straight hitless at-bats to begin his MLB career.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Valdespin is the first player whose first career hit was a go-ahead HR in the ninth inning or later since Miguel Cabrera on June 20, 2003. He's the first player to record his first career hit via a pinch-hit go-ahead HR in the ninth inning or later since Steve Sisco for the Atlanta Braves on May 13, 2000 (also against the Phillies). While Cabrera has gone on to hit more than 280 HR in the majors, Sisco's HR was the only one of his short MLB career.

Papelbon earned his first loss as a member of the Phillies and allowed at least three runs in a game for the first time since June 4 of last year. Papelbon had good reason to think that Valdespin wouldn't be able to do much with the splitter that ended up in the bleachers. Entering Monday, opponents were just 2-13 (.154) against Papelbon's split-finger fastball this season.

Roy Halladay's streak of eight straight wins against the Mets came to an end after he allowed two runs on five hits over seven innings. After winning his first three starts of 2012, the Phillies have now lost four straight starts by Halladay for the first time since he came to Philadelphia in 2010. Halladay has a 5.13 ERA in those games after having a 1.17 ERA in his first three starts of the season.

Elsewhere in the majors on Monday:

• Philip Humber struggled for a third straight start, allowing eight runs and failing to reach the fourth inning as the Chicago White Sox fell to the Cleveland Indians 8-6. Since throwing the 21st perfect game in MLB history on April 21, Humber is now 0-2 with a 13.50 ERA in his last three starts. According to Elias, Humber's 20 runs allowed in that span are the most by any pitcher in his first three starts after a perfect game since 1900.

• Brandon Snyder, who entered Monday with five total RBI in 27 career games, drove in a game-high six runs in the Texas Rangers 14-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles. Snyder became the first player to drive in at least six runs from the eighth spot in the order since Jorge Posada on August 13 last season.

• The Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals 11-5, improving to 12-16 on the season. Despite their subpar record, Monday was the MLB-leading eighth time the Red Sox scored 10 or more runs in a game this season. Baseball-reference.com tells us Boston is the fourth team to score 10 or more runs eight times in its first 28 games of a season in the live-ball era (since 1920), joining the 1997 Rockies, 1950 Yankees and 1928 Athletics.

(The New York Yankees host the Baltimore Orioles, Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.)

Ivan Nova has won 15 straight decisions, one shy of the franchise record held by Roger Clemens. Nova is 3-0 against the Orioles, with all three wins coming during this streak.

This season, Nova’s tendency has been to feel out his slider and curveball after a couple innings and then pick one to use predominantly. He’s relied heavily on the slider in only one start even though it’s been his most effective pitch.

Batters are missing on 43 percent of swings at Nova’s slider and hitting just .118 on at-bats ending on a slider. On all other pitches, they're hitting .386.

Nova has pitched into the sixth inning in all four starts and has been supported by a bullpen that is tied with the Texas Rangers for the second-best bullpen ERA in the American League. (In Nova's four starts, the Yankees' bullpen has allowed one earned run in 11⅔ innings.)

The AL team with the best bullpen ERA is the Orioles at 1.76. Baltimore started the day one game back of the Tampa Bay Rays for first place in the AL East – thanks in large part to its pitching. After having the worst team ERA in the AL in four of the last 11 seasons, Baltimore's 2.94 team ERA ranks second behind the Rangers in the Senior Circuit.

Baltimore’s bullpen has stranded 85.6 percent of base runners inherited – only the Yankees in the American League have stranded a higher percentage (86.9 percent). Baltimore’s relievers have allowed just four home runs, thanks in part to a league-best 52 percent groundball rate.

They also have four pitchers who have come out of the bullpen, thrown more than eight innings and not allowed an earned run. Luis Ayala, Matt Lindstrom and Jim Johnson have combined for 30⅓ scoreless innings, and Darren O’Day has allowed just one earned run in 12⅔ innings.

The Orioles have had to rely on pitching the first month of the season because the offense has been average: sixth in the league in batting average, tied for sixth in runs and 11th in on-base percentage. One reason the Orioles' on-base percentage is so low is because they strike out at the second-highest rate in the AL and walk at the second-lowest rate.

Baltimore has been able to overcome these deficits by hitting for a lot of power. The Orioles' 32 home runs are third in the AL behind the Yankees (38) and Rangers (36).

(The Toronto Blue Jays host the Texas Rangers, Monday at 7 ET on ESPN.)

The Texas Rangers are still an offensive force, leading the majors in hits, runs, batting average, slugging and total bases.

The Rangers are also fourth in ERA and WHIP, thanks in large part to their bullpen. Texas’ relievers have a 2.05 ERA, struck out 54 and walked four, and opponents are hitting just .197.

As good as the Rangers' bullpen has been, rookie starting pitcher Yu Darvish has been almost as impressive.

Darvish is 3-0 and has an 0.89 ERA in his last three starts. The Rangers have won all four of his starts, and have given him an average of 7.3 runs of support per start.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, since 1957 (when the first official rules for rookie status were implemented) only five rookie starting pitchers were 4-0 or better in April: 1968 Jerry Koosman (4-0), 1977 Jerry Garvin (4-0), 1981 Fernando Valenzuela (5-0), 1996 Mike Grace (4-0) and 2002 Kazuhisa Ishii (5-0).

Darvish has six different pitches and has thrown each of them at least 24 times. He throws fewer than half his pitches in the strike zone, and opponents are just 4-for-29 (.138) on pitches out of the zone.

However, Darvish has had some control issues. He's walked 15 batters, which is tied for fourth in MLB, and has walked at least four batters in three of his four starts.

Darvish has not allowed a home run -- only four pitchers have thrown more pitches without allowing a home run this season. In Toronto, he’ll get his first look at Jose Bautista, who has hit 97 home runs since the start of 2010.

Bautista has three HR in 2012, but overall is off to a much slower start than last season.

He’s hitting .190 and slugging .329. Last April, Bautista hit .366 and slugged .780. The good news is that in his breakout season in 2010, Bautista hit .213 and slugged .427 in the first month of the season.

One reason for his down numbers can be attributed to bad luck on balls in play (BABIP). His BABIP is .179, much lower than his .309 average last season.

His line-drive percent is down as well from 18 percent last season to 10 percent in 2012, and his groundball percent is up slightly (37 percent last season to 40 percent in 2012).

Bautista's power is down because he’s hitting fewer balls in the air, and far fewer of those balls are leaving the ballpark or even going for extra-base hits.

Also, don't be surprised if Bautista sees a lot of off-speed pitches from Darvish, who throws fastballs less than 50 percent of the time. Bautista is hitting .167 on off-speed stuff, down more than 100 points from last season (.284 with 15 home runs).

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

1. CLIPPERS MAKE HISTORIC COMEBACK: The Los Angeles Clippers defeated the Memphis Grizzlies, 99-98, in Game One of their First-Round series. The Clippers trailed by 21 points at the end of the third quarter. The win tied the shot-clock era playoff record for the largest deficit overcome at the end of the third quarter. (2002 Boston Celtics vs New Jersey Nets)

2. BYNUM RECORDS TRIPLE-DOUBLE IN WIN: Andrew Bynum recorded a triple-double (10 Pts, 13 Reb, 10 Blk) in the Los Angeles Lakers 103-88 win over the Denver Nuggets in Game One on Sunday. According to Elias, was the first triple-double by a center in an NBA playoff game since May 7, 1993, when David Robinson of the San Antonio Spurs (20 points, 17 rebounds, 11 assists) did it against the Portland Trail Blazers.

3. RONDO EJECTED, CELTICS DEJECTED: Rajon Rondo was ejected for bumping a referee during the fourth quarter of the Celtics 83-74 Game One loss to the Atlanta Hawks. NEXT LEVEL: If Rondo is suspended, the Celtics offense will likely take a hit. The Celtics averaged over seven points more per 100 possessions with Rondo on the floor this season compared to when he was off the floor or out.

4. RAYS ROMP RANGERS IN SERIES: The Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Texas Rangers, 5-2, taking two of three games in their weekend series against the defending AL champions. According to Elias, the Rangers had won each of their seven previous series this season, tying them for the second-longest streak of consecutive series wins to begin a season for a team that had gone to the World Series the previous year. The 1907 Chicago Cubs won their first 11 series and the 2003 San Francisco Giants won their first seven.

5. METS WIN A CLOSE ONE: The New York Mets defeated the Colorado Rockies, 6-5 in 11 innings. According to Elias, it was the second victory in franchise history in which the Mets allowed a pair of game-tying home runs in the 8th inning or later. The other was New York's classic 19-inning, 16-13 win at the Atlanta Braves on July 4, 1985.

Tonight in Arlington, Sunday Night Baseball features a clash of the division-leading Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers.

Texas leads the league in runs, but the most interesting thing to watch when the Rangers are batting will actually be the shifting Rays defense.

Last season Tampa Bay led the majors by shifting their infield 216 times, an average of 1.3 shifts per game.

This season the Rays have already used 125 infield shifts, amplifying their usage to nearly six times per game.

The huge spike in shifts has primarily been caused by adjusting more often against right-handed hitters. Last season, the Rays shifted on seven percent of such at-bats; this season, the number is 50 percent.

Is this hyper-shifting working? Perhaps. Twenty-one games into the season, the Rays rank 20th in defensive efficiency but are 2nd in defensive runs saved with 20.

Tampa Bay’s opponents are hitting .255 on ground balls this year, compared to the league average of .226.

Looking at a larger sample size, Rays opponents hit .222 on ground balls in 2011, notably worse than the league average of .237.

It’s worth pointing out that the shift not only affects ground balls, but also line drives. Opponents are hitting .642 on line drives against the Rays this season, six percentage points lower than the major-league average.

Again, this season’s sample size is small, but the Rays defense was very similar a year ago, also holding opponents to a line-drive batting average six percentage points lower than the major-league average.

Several Texas Rangers are strong candidates to see shifts tonight. Since 2009, Josh Hamilton has hit 68 percent of his ground balls to the middle-right or far-right portions of the field, with 19 percent to the middle-left or far-left.

Righties Ian Kinsler (74 percent) and Mike Napoli (75 percent) have both pulled about three-quarters of their ground balls since 2009. Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz aren’t far behind, at 65 percent each.

According to The Fielding Bible, the first known use of shifting was in 1946 against Ted Williams, who walked on four pitches. Sixty-six years later, the Rays are taking that idea to the extreme, and tonight’s game may be a showcase for their defensive revolution.

Information from Baseball Info Solutions was used in 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

Jose Reyes returns to Flushing, NY to face his former team, the New York Mets, starting tonight at Citi Field as the Miami Marlins begin a three-game set against the Mets.

Reyes began his career in the Mets organization before signing a six-year, $106 million deal with the Marlins this past offseason.

Reyes ranks in the top three in several career categories in Mets history: first in runs (735), triples (99) and steals (370); second in hits (1,300) and third in doubles (222).

With a healthy Reyes in the lineup, the Mets were a much different team, winning over 53 percent of the time, compared to a .437 win percentage without him in the lineup.

Check out the article written by ESPN The Magazine’s Jorge Arangure Jr. about Reyes and his return to New York.

Early Morning Baseball in Japan
The New York Yankees and Texas Rangers play the second game of their three-game set in Arlington tonight with Hiroki Kuroda facing off against Yu Darvish at 8:05 pm ET (9:05 am Wednesday in Japan).

This is just the seventh time that two Japanese pitchers have started against each other in MLB history and the first time since July 22, 2010 when Kuroda (the pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers) pitched against the Mets Hisanori Takahashi.

The two starting pitchers – who never faced each other in Japan – have had some struggles this season. Kuroda, who spent his first four years in the majors pitching for the Dodgers, is limiting right-handed batters to a .133 average (4-for-30). However, lefties are hitting .432 (19-for-44).

Darvish allowed four runs to the Seattle Mariners in the first inning of his first MLB start (April 9), but has allowed only four runs COMBINED in his 16⅔ innings pitched since (two starts).

A Look Back at Last Night
• During the Yankees 7-4 win over the Rangers, Derek Jeter went 4-for-5 with a double and RBI.

That was Jeter’s 42nd career four-hit game and the first time he’s had two four-hit games in April in his career (went 4-for-4 against the Baltimore Orioles on April 9).

On July 9, 2011, Jeter went 5-for-5 against the Tampa Bay Rays and in the process registered his 3,000th hit. Including that game, Jeter has hit .354 in his last 81 games. Among players with at 100 plate appearances since July 9, 2011, only three other players have a higher batting average.

In his previous 81 games (Sept. 17, 2010 to July 8, 2011), Jeter had batted just .274

• The Kansas City Royals lost to the Toronto Blue Jays 4-1, the Royals 11th straight home loss dating back to last season (the longest home losing streak in franchise history).

Kansas City finished its homestand 0-10. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only two other teams in major-league history went 0-10 or worse on a homestand: the Seattle Pilots (a first-year expansion team that became the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970) lost all 10 games of a homestand in August 1969; and the Arizona Diamondbacks went 0-11 on a homestand in July of 2004.

• The Chicago Cubs scored its first walk-off win of the season by defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 on Joe Mather's two-run single in the bottom of the ninth, his second career walk-off hit.

The Elias Sports Bureau tells us over the last 20 years the Cubs had only one other home win against St. Louis after trailing in the ninth inning or later. That occurred on May 29, 1999, with a ninth-inning rally that featured a game-tying home run by Glenallen Hill and a walkoff double by Mark Grace. Mather became the first former Cardinals player to have a walk-off RBI for the Cubs against St. Louis since Jerry Morales on September 22, 1981.

Nate Jones contributed to this post