ESPN More Sports

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

1. LAKERS BEAT THUNDER IN WILD GAME: The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Oklahoma Thunder, 114-106, in double overtime. One of the best games of the season was marred by an incident late in the second quarter. Metta World Peace was ejected after he hit Thunder guard James Harden in the head with his elbow. The Lakers forward has been suspended 13 times, totaling 111 games, in his career.

2. KINGS COMPLETE HUGE UPSET: The Los Angeles Kings shocked the Vancouver Canucks, 2-1, in overtime to win the Western Conference Quarterfinals in five games. According to Elias, Vancouver is the first Presidents' Trophy-winning team to be knocked out in the first round of the playoffs in fewer than six games.

3. YOUNG SEGUIN SAVES THE DAY: The Boston Bruins defeated the Washington Capitals, 4-3, behind the first career playoff OT goal of 20 year-old Tyler Seguin. Each game in this series has been decided by one goal. According to Elias, the Bruins-Capitals series is the first in NHL playoff history in which each of the first six games were decided by a one-goal margin.

4. HAMLIN WINS AT KANSAS: Denny Hamlin won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway. It’s Hamlin’s second win of 2012, and 19th of his Cup Series car. The win also marked the 199th Cup win for the #11 car, making it the winningest car in series history.

5. KENNEDY WINS AGAIN: The Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Atlanta Braves, 6-4, as Ian Kennedy improved to 3-0 this season. According to Elias, Kennedy has won his last nine regular-season decisions, tying him with Clayton Kershaw for the second-longest current winning streak in the majors, behind Ivan Nova (15).

Wondering why those who are in the top 10 were picked in those spots? Here are some numbers to know about each of the top 10 players in the ESPN 500.

Albert Pujols –- Pujols is in very elite company. He’s one of six players to hit 400 career home runs and bat at least .325. The other five: Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig and Stan Musial. Pujols’ 445 home runs through his first 11 seasons are the most all-time through a player’s initial 11 years in the majors.

Roy Halladay -- Halladay has 170 wins and a 2.97 ERA, averaging almost 210 innings per year over the last 10 seasons. The last pitcher to average 17 wins and 200 innings a season, over a 10-season span, and do so with a sub-3.00 ERA was Greg Maddux from 1995 to 2004.

Miguel Cabrera -- Cabrera has led the American League in at least two significant offensive categories in three of the last four seasons. Cabrera’s .977 OPS over the last six seasons trails only Albert Pujols in that span.

Justin Verlander -– Verlander won both the AL MVP and Cy Young awards in 2011, the first pitcher to win both since Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley in 1992, and the first starter to do so since Roger Clemens in 1986. Over the last three seasons, Verlander leads the majors in wins (61) and strikeouts (738) and is third in opponents BA (.221).

Felix Hernandez -- Hernandez and Roy Halladay are the only two pitchers to average 240 innings per season over the last three seasons, and his ERA, when adjusted for ballpark, ranks second to Halladay in that span as well.

Ryan Braun –- Braun has led all major league outfielders in batting average (.318), RBI (328), runs (323) and doubles (122) over the last three seasons. The 2007 NL Rookie the Year and 2011 NL MVP has hit 161 HR in his first five seasons, the 10th-most by a player in his first five seasons.

Clayton Kershaw –- Kershaw is second to Roy Halladay among National League starters in both wins and ERA, but leads in strikeouts and opponent batting average over the last two seasons.

Troy Tulowitzki -- Over the last three seasons, Tulowitzki has 89 home runs, 34 more than any other player whose primary position is shortstop. His OPS+ of 134 also tops all shortstops in that span. Tulowitzki also ranks third among shortstops over the last three seasons in Defensive Runs Saved.

Tim Lincecum –- Since making his debut in May of 2007, Lincecum has struck out at least 10 batters in a game 31 times, the most in the majors over that span. His 977 strikeouts over the last four years is tops among all pitchers.

Robinson Cano -- Cano has led major-league second baseman in both slugging percentage and OPS in each of the last two seasons. This season, he will likely break the Yankees record for career home runs as a second baseman, a mark currently held by Tony Lazzeri (147- eight more than Cano) that has stood for more than half a century.

After spending the past seven seasons on the East and West Coast, Carlos Beltran is headed back to the Midwest. Beltran agreed to a two-year deal with the world champion St. Louis Cardinals Thursday, according to sources. The six-time All-Star batted .300 and hit 22 home runs with 84 RBI last season with the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants.

This will be Beltran's second stint with a team in the state of Missouri. He spent seven seasons with the Kansas City Royals winning Rookie of the Year in 1999.

While he’s no longer a borderline MVP-candidate, Beltran’s track record of productivity can be matched by few in the National League since 2005. Beltran ranks sixth in the NL among position players in Wins Above Replacement over that span.

Besides his offensive and defensive skills, Beltran has a history of excelling in the postseason. No player in MLB history with a minimum 75 plate appearances has a higher OPS in the postseason than Beltran's 1.302.

With Beltran joining the Cardinals, St. Louis now has the two best offensive switch-hitters in the majors from last year. Lance Berkman's OPS was .959 last season while Beltran's was .910.

Meanwhile, the Oakland Athletics traded All-Star pitcher Gio Gonzalez to the Washington Nationals for four prospects according to sources. The Nationals receive pitchers Brad Peacock, A.J. Cole, Tom Milone and catcher Derek Norris. Gonzalez had a career best in wins (16), ERA (3.12) and strikeouts (197) last season, but also led the league in walks (91).

Few pitchers have provided a greater value for the dollar than Gonzalez. Over the last two seasons, 13 pitchers have won at least 30 games. Of those, Gonzalez has been the most cost-effective option, earning $26,613 for every win since 2010.

Gonzalez is under team control through 2015, but he's about to get more expensive. MLBtraderumors.com projects a $4.2 million salary in 2012, the first of Gonzalez's four arbitration-eligible years.

With the acquisition of Gonzalez, the Nationals now have three pitchers (Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann) who will all be age 26 or younger in 2012. They join two other franchises (Braves, Diamondbacks) who have at least three starters – all of whom were 25 or younger in 2011 - who posted a cumulative ERA better than 4.00 since the start of the 2010 season.

The Dodgers may not have had the best of seasons in 2011, but their ace, Clayton Kershaw, had a season that evoked the names of some of the best pitchers in Dodgers history.

Kershaw is the Dodgers first pitcher to win the Cy Young Award since reliever Eric Gagne in 2003 and the first Dodgers starter to win it since Orel Hershiser in 1988.

Kershaw finished with 21 wins, 248 strikeouts, and a 2.28 ERA. The last pitcher to hit or better all three of those benchmarks in a season was Pedro Martinez for the 1999 Red Sox.
The only two other National League pitchers to reach these plateaus in the last 40 years are Steve Carlton (1972 Phillies) and Dwight Gooden (1985 Mets). The last Dodgers pitcher to do so was Hall-of-Famer Sandy Koufax in 1966.

Kershaw was the first Dodgers pitcher to lead the National League in wins since Brad Penny and Derek Lowe in 2006, the first to be best in ERA since Kevin Brown in 2000, and the first to top the leader board in strikeouts since Hideo Nomo in 1995.

Kershaw was 12-3 with a 1.93 ERA in 18 starts this season against teams that finished the year with winning records. The Elias Sports Bureau notes that the only other pitcher with more than eight such wins this season was Ian Kennedy (9-2, 2.97 ERA in 14 starts).

Elias also notes that Kershaw closed the season with a flourish. His 1.31 ERA after the All-Star Break is the best of any pitcher in Dodgers history.

He and Justin Verlander each won the Pitching Triple Crown, the first time that had been done in both leagues in the same season since Hall-of-Famers Dazzy Vance (Dodgers) and Walter Johnson (Senators) won in 1924.

What made Kershaw better than he’d been in previous seasons?

Considering that the difference in Kershaw’s batting average on balls in play from 2010 to 2011 was minimal (.279 in 2010; .274 in 2011), what most made Kershaw dominant was his strikeout increase (from 212 to 248) and walk decrease (from 81 to 54).

That came from Kershaw changing the mix of pitches with which he got outs in 2011.

In 2009 and 2010, Kershaw was a pitcher who got 70 percent of his outs with his fastball. Last season, he evolved into someone who used his heater to get outs just over half of the time.

The big jump for Kershaw was in the increased use of his slider as his dominant out pitch (something we noted in August). It got one-third of his outs in 2011, a rate that was basically double what it got in 2010.

That was even more pronounced with two strikes, as Kershaw went from throwing breaking pitches 35 percent of the time in 2010 to doing so in 60 percent of his two-strike counts last season.

Kershaw’s high rate of success with his slider was evident in this stat: He struck out 138 hitters with his slider, the most strikeouts with that pitch in the majors.

The image below illustrates Kershaw’s change in approach. The image on the left shows the location of Kershaw’s strikeout pitches to right-handed hitters in 2010. The image on the right shows a much different look for 2011.

The red shading accounts for an area in which Kershaw whiffed 62 hitters last season, nearly double the number the number he had in that location in 2010.

The 2011 regular season finished, arguably, in one of the most exciting fashions in baseball history. Now that the postseason has been set, let’s take a look back at which players won batting and pitching titles this season.

AL Crowns
• For the second consecutive year, Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays claimed the home run title. His 43 on the season were two ahead of the New York Yankees' Curtis Granderson. He's the first to claim the crown in two straight years since Alex Rodriguez did it in 2002-03.

• Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers - who also led the league in doubles with 47 - was the AL (and MLB) batting champion at .344. He is the second Tigers player to win the batting title in the last 50 seasons (Magglio Ordonez in 2007).

• Although Granderson and Robinson Cano started the day one-two in the AL RBI race, it was Mark Teixeira who came up big for the Yankees on Wednesday. His five-RBI game gave him 111 on the season and propelled him into fourth place. The last time three teammates finished within the top four of their league's RBI race was the 1966 Baltimore Orioles. That year, Frank Robinson (122) won the AL RBI race, while teammates Boog Powell (109) and Brooks Robinson (100) finished second and tied for fourth, respectively.

NL Crowns
• Jose Reyes singled in his first at-bat Wednesday and was promptly subbed out for a pinch runner. That left the New York Mets' leadoff hitter with a batting average of .337, potentially caught only by Ryan Braun who started the day at .335. Ultimately he finished the game 0-for-4 for a season average of .332, giving Reyes - and the Mets franchise - their first-ever NL batting champion. Reyes won the NL batting title in only 126 games played this season. That's the fewest amount of games played for a batting champion since Manny Ramirez hit .349 in 120 games played in 2002.

• Prince Fielder and Matt Kemp were tied for the NL home run lead entering Wednesday, but with just three innings left in the season, Kemp launched his 39th of the season out of Chase Field and claimed the title outright. Fielder finished with 38 and was followed by Albert Pujols' 37. The last season the National League leader did not finish with at least 40 HR was in 1992 when Fred McGriff had 35. Kemp also finished as the National League RBI leader with 126, six above Fielder.

• Starlin Castro led the National League in hits this year with 207. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 21-year-old Castro is the youngest player ever to lead the NL in that category, breaking the mark set in 1918 by another Chicago Cubs player, Charlie Hollocher, who was 22 years, 83 days old on the final day of that war-shortened season.

Other Point of Interest
• Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw both won the pitching Triple Crown in their respective leagues (Wins, ERA and Strikeouts). While the pitching Triple Crown has been won several times in MLB history (most recently by Jake Peavy with the San Diego Padres in 2007), this is the first time there’s been dual pitching Triple Crowns since 1924.

Two of the leading contenders for the Cy Young Award in each league -- Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw -- will be making their final starts this weekend. Verlander faces the Baltimore Orioles at Comerica Park on Saturday night, while Kershaw takes the hill against the San Diego Padres on Sunday afternoon.



The two pitchers not only are in the discussion for end-of-season awards, but also are on pace to achieve a historic feat. Both Verlander and Kershaw are currently leading their respective leagues in the pitching Triple Crown categories (wins, ERA, strikeouts).

While the pitching Triple Crown has been won several times in major league history (most recently by Jake Peavy with the Padres in 2007), there haven't been two winners in the same season in over 85 years. The last time it happened was in 1924, when Walter Johnson won in the AL and Dazzy Vance won in the NL.



As it stands now, Verlander is nearly a lock to win the crown. He owns a five-game lead in wins, a 14-strikeout lead and a 0.12-point lead in ERA. Kershaw has comfortable leads in both ERA and strikeouts, but is tied for the lead in wins with Ian Kennedy (with both likely to get one final start).

Verlander is also chasing history as he goes for his 25th victory on Saturday. He would be the first major league pitcher with 25 wins since Bob Welch went 27-6 in 1990, and the first Detroit Tigers pitcher with 25 wins since Mickey Lolich in 1971.

Verlander should have a good shot at joining those guys, given his success against the Orioles. He’s undefeated (6-0) in eight career starts versus the O’s, and over his past three starts, he has 28 strikeouts with just four walks allowed.



Kershaw goes for his 21st win on Sunday and looks to etch his name into the Dodgers’ record book yet again this season. Already, with his 20th win on Tuesday, Kershaw became the fourth-youngest pitcher in Los Angeles Dodgers history to win 20 games in a season.

If he wins Sunday, his 21 wins would be the most in a single season by a Dodgers pitcher since Orel Hershiser went 23-8 in 1988. He would be just the sixth Dodgers lefthander to win 21 or more games in a season.

If Verlander or Kershaw (or both) do win the pitching Triple Crown, history says they are a lock for the Cy Young Award. Since the award began in 1956, every pitcher to win the Triple Crown has also won the Cy Young Award that season.

With a 5-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays Tuesday night, New York Yankees starter Ivan Nova captured his 12th straight win. Nova went 7.2 innings and allowed six hits and no earned runs. His 12 straight wins by a rookie starter are the most since Larry Jansen of the 1947 Giants did the same.

The Yankees now have a six-game lead over the struggling Boston Red Sox, their largest margin of the season. New York can clinch a playoff berth with a win in one game of Wednesday's day-night doubleheader with the Rays.

Here's a next-level look at how Nova got the win:

Nova threw his fastball less often than he normally does. Fifty-three of his 103 pitches (51.5 percent) were fastballs, below his season average of 61.3 percent.

Rays hitters were 3 for 14 in at-bats ending with Nova's fastball. Overall, hitters are hitting .196 in at-bats ending with Nova's fastball in September; they hit .297 against it before that.

Left-handed hitters were 2 for 11 against Nova, and he had success keeping the ball away from those hitters.

Thirty-one of his 52 pitches to lefties (59.6 percent) were outside, above his season average of 50.9 percent entering Tuesday. Rays lefties were 0 for 5 in at-bats ending with an outside pitch from Nova.

Rays hitters were 1 for 15 against Nova with men on base, including two double plays.

Nova stayed out of hitters' counts. Fourteen of his 103 pitches (13.6 percent) came when he was behind in the count, his second-lowest percentage in a start this season.

Elsewhere in the AL East, the Red Sox could not take advantage of the Rays loss and remained two games ahead of Tampa Bay in the American League wild card race. Starter Erik Bedard struggled against the Baltimore Orioles, throwing 76 pitches in 2.2 innings of work and allowing four runs (one earned), in a 7-5 loss. This is the 14th straight game in which the Red Sox did not get a quality start.

The Red Sox are now 5-15 in September, which is as many losses as they had in September and October of last season.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Red Sox have gone 22 straight games without winning two in a row. That's their longest such streak since the 1994 team had a 28-game run in May and June of that season.

The Red Sox used seven pitchers in their Tuesday loss to the Orioles. Since rosters expanded on September 1, the Red Sox have used at least five pitchers in a game nine times. They have used at least five pitchers in 45 percent of their 20 games this month.

Jonathan Papelbon recorded his second blown save of season. He'd converted 25 straight save chances and allowed his first run since July 16.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Clayton Kershaw got the better of Tim Lincecum and picked up his 20th win in the Los Angeles Dodgers' 2-1 win over the San Francisco Giants. The loss snapped the Giants' eight-game win streak and moved the Dodgers above .500 for the first time since they were 14-13 before games of April 30.

The Elias Sports Bureau tells us Kershaw is the fourth-youngest pitcher in Dodgers history to win 20 games in a season and the third since 1942 to defeat the Giants for win number 20 of the season.

Kershaw (20-5, .800) joins Justin Verlander (24-5, .828) and Ian Kennedy (20-4, .833) as pitchers with at least 20 wins and a winning percentage of .800 or better in 2011. There have been only two seasons in major-league history in which at least three pitchers won 20 or more games with a winning percentage of .800 or higher: 1910 (Russ Ford of the Yankees, King Cole of the Cubs and Chief Bender of the A’s) and 2002 (Barry Zito of the A’s, Randy Johnson of the Diamondbacks and Pedro Martinez of the Red Sox).

Dan Braunstein contributed to this story.

Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw (who pitches Wednesday) leads the National League in strikeouts (231), is tied for first with Johnny Cueto of the Cincinnati Reds in ERA (2.36) and trails Ian Kennedy of the Arizona Diamondbacks by one for the most wins (Kershaw has 18).

Eight pitchers have won the pitching triple crown (wins, ERA, and strikeouts) a combined 11 times since the Cy Young Award was first given out in 1956. All 11 of those seasons resulted in a first-place finish in Cy Young voting.

If Kershaw were to win, it wouldn’t be shocking for the award to go to a player from a losing team (the Dodgers are currently three games under .500). It’s happened 15 times including each of the last three seasons. The Seattle Mariners Felix Hernandez (2010) and Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals (2009) won the AL Cy Young, and the San Francisco Giants Tim Lincecum took home the NL award in 2008.

However, if teammate Matt Kemp were to win MVP he would become just the sixth winner from a losing team since the Baseball Writers started giving the award in 1931.

If Kemp and Kershaw were to pull off the double they would be the 19th set of teammates to do so but could be the first from a losing team.

Seventeen of the previous 18 teams that had both a Cy Young Award winner and a league MVP went to the playoffs with the exception being the 1962 Dodgers, who won 102 games but lost a best-of-three playoff to the Giants for the pennant. The worst team in terms of win percentage was the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies, who were 91-71 (.562).

The Philadelphia Phillies have lost 15 of their last 18 Labor Day games. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only the Tampa Bay Rays (1–8) have a worse record on Labor Day than the Phillies over the last 20 years.

But the Phillies do have Cliff Lee (15-7) going tonight against the Atlanta Braves. Although he is 0-2 this season against the Braves, Lee has won six straight starts.

Lee is one of a handful of pitchers who are in a tight race for the National League Cy Young award. When you remove wins and losses, there are three pitchers -- Lee, Roy Halladay and the Los Angeles Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw -- who are virtually statistical triplets.

Another way to look at these three is with a metric called “Expected Team Winning Percentage” or xWin Percentage. (xWin Percentage determines how frequently a starting pitcher’s team should win and is based on game-by-game performance. It uses innings pitched and earned runs to establish team win probability.)

Among National League pitchers with at least 20 starts, Lee's teammate Halladay has the highest Expected Team Winning Percentage at .681. Kershaw is fourth (.667) and Lee is sixth (.635).

Halladay outranks Kershaw because he has the ability to avoid the bad start. Halladay has only four starts in which he’s allowed four runs or more. Kershaw has six such starts and Lee has seven.

The previous edition of the ESPN Stats & Information Divisional Power Rankings discussed the close race between the AL East and NL East for divisional supremacy. Through July 31, the NL East had outperformed the AL East in two of the categories that we measure (non-divisional win percentage and strength of schedule) and was comparable in the other two. After four months of baseball, the NL East trailed the AL East by 4.2 points and appeared to be rising to the top.

Despite strong months by the Philadelphia Phillies (18-7) and the Atlanta Braves (17-9), the NL East slid in the rankings in August and now trails the AL East by 12.4 points. Its slide was a result of poor performances by the bottom of the division, resulting in a .481 win percentage against non-divisional opponents in the month of August.

Specifically, the Florida Marlins lost 14 of 17 games that they played against teams outside of the NL East in August (lowest win percentage outside of the division of any team in MLB). The Washington Nationals (6-11) and New York Mets (4-9) also struggled in non-divisional August games.

Injuries to top NL East performers Jose Reyes and Brian McCann hurt the NL East in the player ratings, while the ascension of NL West players such as Clayton Kershaw and Troy Tulowitzki helped the NL West jump into third place in the rankings. San Francisco had a rough month, dropping out of first place in the division and going 9-15 outside of the NL West, but the rest of the division had a successful month.

Every team in the division besides San Francisco rose by at least three positions in the ESPN.com Power Rankings since the last release of these rankings, largely because they all posted winning records outside of the division in August.

The Milwaukee Brewers were unstoppable in August (21-7) and helped the NL Central climb 2.8 more points. Look for the Brewers in a National League divisional showdown as Philadelphia travels to Milwaukee on September 8 for a four-game series. Other inter-divisional matchups to keep an eye on are Texas at Boston beginning September 2 (Boston took three of four last month in Arlington) and Atlanta at St. Louis beginning September 9.

One of the few bright spots for the Los Angeles Dodgers this season has been Clayton Kershaw. His 14 wins leave him behind only Roy Halladay and Ian Kennedy in the National League. Kershaw’s 193 strikeouts trails only Justin Verlander for the major league lead.

What has brought him into the NL Cy Young picture? One answer the improved effectiveness of his slider against right-handed hitters.

Kershaw is using the pitch significantly more in 2011 against right-handed batters than he did in 2010. After throwing it an average of around 10 times per start to them last season, he's thrown the slider about 17 times per start so far this season.

As our heat maps above show, Kershaw has kept the pitch lower in the zone and farther inside against righties this season, making it a tougher pitch to hit. Kershaw has registered a MLB-best 111 of his 193 strikeouts (58 percent) using the slider. He’s one of just three pitchers with over 100 strikeouts using the pitch. That success has increased his overall strikeout rate to 9.9 per nine innings compared to 9.3 in 2010.

Though he's allowed two home runs with his slider against right-handers this season (he yielded none last year) Kershaw still got the win in both outings where he allowed a blast off the pitch. He's getting better than eight outs for every hit he's allowed with his slider this season(opponents batting average: .107), largely because it's been so effective with two strikes. Last season he allowed a hit for every six outs he got with his slider.

Kershaw’s outstanding season brings him into the race for the National League Cy Young award. With a Wins Above Replacement of 4.9 (already higher than his 2010 WAR), compared to Halladay’s 6.7, he is in the thick of the race for baseball's highest pitching honor.

Coming into Wedneday's game against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw, San Francisco Giants' ace Tim Lincecum was 0-3 this season against pitchers named Clayton.

Lincecum can now add a fourth loss to that list and his second to Kershaw, all because of a single pitch.

With the game scoreless in the seventh inning, Lincecum coughed up a solo home run to Dodgers C Dioner Navarro. That hit proved to be all the offense Kershaw needed, as he held on for the win, 1-0.

Kershaw threw eight shutout innings, allowing just three hits and a walk, while striking out 12 to improve to 11-4 this season.

It is the sixth time Kershaw has struck out 10 or more batters in a game this season - tied with Cliff Lee for most in MLB.

Lincecum, meanwhile lasted seven innings, tallying seven strikeouts and allowing five hits.

Kershaw went to his curveball more often than usual to put Giants hitters away. Ten of his 26 two-strike pitches (38.5 percent) were curveballs, above his 12.9 season average entering the start.

Five of Kershaw's strikeouts were with his curveball, matching his most in a start in the last three seasons.

Four more of Kershaw's strikeouts came with his slider, giving him nine strikeouts on the day with offspeed pitches. He leads the league in strikeouts, mostly because of his ability to punch hitters out with his breaking ball pitches.

ELSEWHERE AROUND THE DIAMOND:
• Vance Worley continued his stretch of strong starts as he allowed one earned run in eight innings for his sixth victory of the season as the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 9-1.

Worley has now made six consecutive starts with five or more innings pitched, while allowing one earned run or fewer. The only other Phillies pitcher in the Live Ball Era (since 1920) with a streak that long is Steve Carlton, who did so in six straight in 1972. Jimmy Rollins homered from both sides of the plate against the Cubs, the second time in his career that he has accomplished that feat (August 12, 2006 vs. Cincinnati Reds).

• In a 14-3 rout of the Florida Marlins, all nine San Diego Padres players scored a run en route to leading by at least 13 runs through two innings for the first time since May 31, 1994.

The last team overall prior to the Padres to be up by at least 13 runs through two innings was the Cubs, who on August 14, 2009 led 14-0 over the Pirates.
The Padres have won three of four overall, as Aaron Harang (5⅓ IP, 3 ER) has not lost since May 2.

For the Marlins, Ricky Nolasco (1⅓ IP, 9 ER) becomes the first pitcher this season to allow nine or more earned runs in fewer than two innings pitched; it happened four times last season.

Hanley Ramirez hit his tenth home run; he's now hitting .366 over his last 25 games.

Two of the best pitchers in baseball will take the mound in Los Angeles on Thursday, only they won't face each other.

Clayton Kershaw will pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers looking to avoid their first ever four-game sweep at home against the New York Mets. Meanwhile across town Jered Weaver looks to finish off his stellar first half of the season as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim host the Seattle Mariners.

The Dodgers couldn't be happier to have Kershaw close the series as he is 6-1, 2.09 ERA at home. He enters having thrown a complete game with 10 or more strikeouts in each of his last two starts at Dodger Stadium -- and in three of his last four home starts overall.

He is the first Dodgers pitcher since Hideo Nomo in 1995 to do so in consecutive home starts. If he can make it three straight complete games with double-digit strikeouts, he would be the first Dodger to do so since Fernando Valenzuela in 1981.

In fact, since moving to L.A. in 1958 only one other Dodgers pitcher besides Valenzuela has had a streak of three such games at home. That was Sandy Koufax who did so on six separate occasions, including three times in which he stretched the streak to four.

Kershaw has dominated the Mets in his young career. Kershaw is 3-0 with a 1.85 in four career starts against New York. In his only career home start against the Mets, Kershaw pitched eight scoreless innings in a 1-0 victory (2010).

Like Kershaw, Weaver is looking to put himself in some historical team company. He enters Thursday's start with an American League-best 1.92 ERA going into his final start before the All-Star break.

If he can keep his ERA below 2.00, according to Elias, he would become just the second pitcher in franchise history to compile a sub-2.00 ERA entering the All-Star Game (minimum 10 starts). The only pitcher to do so was Jim McGlothin who had a 1.80 ERA entering the break in 1967.

Weaver has had an extremely streaky season. He went 6-0 with a 0.99 ERA in March and April. According to Elias he was the sixth pitcher in the modern era (since 1900) with six wins by the end of April.

Then in May he went 0-4, 3.38 ERA in six starts. During that stretch his K per 9 IP dropped from 9.7 in March-April to only 6.3 that month.

Even more startling was his miss percentage -- the rate of swing and misses out of total swings -- was cut nearly in half dropping from 29.8 to only 15.5 percent.

Weaver has bounced back in his last six starts going 4-0 with a 1.58 ERA. He has made four straight starts with 7+ IP and 1 ER or fewer. The last Angels pitcher with five straight was Mike Witt in 1986.

When thinking about strikeouts, what usually comes to mind is a pitcher blowing away a hitter with high-90s heat. However, in a season in which strikeouts have been rising, pitchers have thrown fewer fastballs with two strikes in 2011 than they had through this point in 2010.

As a result, pitchers are recording a higher percentage of strikeouts using offspeed pitches.

Felix Hernandez, second in the American League with 134 strikeouts, has seen his changeup become his most effective two-strike pitch. In fact, with two strikes in the count, out of the 97 plate appearances that ended in a changeup being thrown, Hernandez recorded 58 strikeouts, the highest strikeout percentage using the changeup for any starter in the majors.

When using his fastball in those same situations, of the 108 plate appearances, only 38 resulted in strikeouts, a drop-off of more than 20 percent.

Not far behind Hernandez is James Shields, whose changeup has led to a great first half for the Rays ace. He has recorded 73 strikeouts with the changeup, the most by any pitcher so far this season. Batters are hitting only .103 off Shields' changeup with two strikes in the count, and nearly 56 percent of those plate appearances that have ended in a changeup resulted in strikeouts.

Justin Verlander, tied for the major league lead, is armed with a deadly fastball, but has also used his changeup effectively to close hitters out.

Overall, batters have been hitting .212 off his changeup. But when he throws it in a two-strike count, that number drops to a .058 average. Verlander ranks fifth in strikeout percentage when throwing the changeup with two strikes.

While the changeup has been the key strikeout pitch for some notable pitchers, it's actually the slider that has experienced the largest bump -- nearly 20 percent of Ks in 2011 versus 19 percent in 2010 -- and is a pitch many premier strikeout pitchers have relied upon this season.

No pitcher has used the slider more effectively than Clayton Kershaw, who is currently tied with Verlander for the league lead in strikeouts. Kershaw leads all pitchers with 75 strikeouts via the slider.

CC Sabathia is tied for third with 64 strikeouts using the slider. Nine of his 11 strikeouts in Tuesday's victory over the Cleveland Indians came on that pitch.

Successful relievers have also leaned on the slider in 2011, with no one being more effective than Jonny Venters. In two-strike counts, out of 41 plate appearances against Venters that ended with a slider, 37 resulted in strikeouts. In those same plate appearances, he has allowed only one hit.

Amazingly, his putaway rate, a metric diving number of strikeouts by number of pitches thrown, is 43.5 percent when he throws a slider with two strikes in the count. That's extremely efficient considering the major-league average for putaway rate on all two-strike pitches is only 17.5 percent.

-- Jason Starrett contributed to this report

A trio of hurlers went the distance on Sunday, with each dominating their opposition in different ways.

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay threw his NL-best fifth complete game this season and 63rd of his career (most among active pitchers) in a 3-1 win against the Oakland Athletics.

He improved to 5-0 with a 2.64 ERA in his past 8 starts. The Phillies have won each of those starts.

He attacked the Oakland hitters early, starting 25 of 33 hitters with a first-pitch strike, tying his third-highest percentage (75.8) in a start this season.

In the eight instances he fell behind 1-0, Halladay threw a strike on the next pitch, not going to a 2-0 count once all game. It's just the sixth time in the past three seasons he didn't go to a 2-0 count in a game.

Halladay had success with his changeup, relying on it more often than usual with runners on base. He used his changeup 23 percent of the time with runners on, his third highest percentage in a start this season.

He recorded five outs on his changeup without allowing a hit -- tying a season high -- with four of those outs coming with runners on base.

Halladay has been a great caretaker of leads since joining the Phillies. He improved to 30-3 in 35 starts when the Phillies have given him a lead (he was staked to an early 2-0 lead on Sunday).

Elsewhere, a former teammate of Halladay’s also went the distance.

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Ricky Romero, who was Halladay’s teammate in Toronto in 2009, threw his second career shutout in a 5-0 Blue Jays win against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Romero dominated the Cardinals by keeping the ball down. Cardinals hitters were 0-for-16 with four strikeouts and a double play in at-bats ending with a pitch down in the zone from Romero.

Sixteen at-bats ending in low pitches without allowing a hit are the most by any starter in the last three seasons. Nine of the 12 low pitches the Cardinals put in play were groundouts, including the double play.

In Romero’s hometown of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw went the distance for his second straight start. Kershaw now has three complete games this season.

He struck out 11 for his second consecutive game with at least 10 strikeouts. He's the first Dodgers pitcher with at least 10 strikeouts in consecutive starts since Chan Ho Park during the 2000 season.

Kershaw continued relying on his slider with two strikes. He struck out eight Angels with the pitch Sunday, matching the second-highest total of his career.

It was the third time this month he's had at least eight strikeouts via the slider. Entering June, he had just two such starts in his career.