Most of the first-half reviews that I saw made a point like this one:

“Pitchers continue to dominate. We enter the break with 21 qualified starters holding an ERA under 3.00 … Kershaw (11-2, 1.78 ERA), Adam Wainwright (12-4, 1.83) and Felix Hernandez (11-2, 2.12) highlight a season with many top pitching performers … Kershaw had a 15-strikeout no-hitter with no walks, perfect other than a fielding error behind him. Wainwright hasn’t allowed a run in nine of his 19 starts. Brilliance.”

(David Schoenfield, “Ten biggest stories of the first half”)

I don’t mean to nitpick my favorite mainstream blogger, but there’s a problem using these stats to describe trends in the game: Where’s the context? How many great first halves do you remember? How about Justin Duchscherer, 2008? — 1.82 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, .186 BA at the Break. Or Dan Haren in 2009 — 2.01 ERA, 0.81 WHIP, 8.1 SO/BB? Does anyone really have a gut sense of how this year’s best first halves compare to recent seasons, in either depth or degree of excellence?

I surely didn’t, so I did some searching. For the last five first halves, here are counts of pitchers with 80+ innings* and ERA of 3.00 or lower, 2.50 or lower, and 2.00 or lower, plus the first-half ERA for each season:

• 2010 — 18 at 3.00 or lower … 9 at 2.50 or lower … 1 at 2.00 or lower … MLB 4.16
• 2011 — 21 at 3.00 or lower … 11 at 2.50 or lower … 3 at 2.00 or lower … MLB 3.85
• 2012 — 20 at 3.00 or lower … 9 at 2.50 or lower … 2 at 2.00 or lower … MLB 4.00
• 2013 — 19 at 3.00 or lower … 6 at 2.50 or lower … 2 at 2.00 or lower … MLB 3.93
• 2014 — 25 at 3.00 or lower … 7 at 2.50 or lower … 2 at 2.00 or lower … MLB 3.81

(* Since the Break’s timing varies, I used 80 innings to include all qualifiers and near-misses like Kershaw. The average team games at the Break in this period was 88, 91, 85, 94 and 95.)

This year does have the most pitchers at 3.00 or lower, but it also has the lowest overall ERA. And this year’s counts at the superior ranges (2.50 and 2.00) are average or worse for the period.

What about the very best, within each season’s context? The Split Finder doesn’t give ERA+, so let’s set the bar at or below 60% of the MLB ERA for that first half:*

• 2010 … 9 at 2.50 or lower
• 2011 … 6 at 2.31 or lower
• 2012 … 8 at 2.40 or lower
• 2013 … 5 at 2.36 or lower
• 2014 … 6 at 2.29 or lower

(* Couldn’t gauge each against their own league’s ERA, since the individual Split Finder doesn’t have a league selector.)

Even without seasonal context, there’s no setting for “elite ERA” that shows greater numbers this year. Here are the counts at or below various ERA levels, from 2010 through 2014:

• 2.50 or lower — 9, 11, 9, 6, 7
• 2.40 or lower — 6, 8, 8, 5, 7
• 2.30 or lower — 6, 6, 4, 3, 6
• 2.20 or lower — 5, 5, 4, 3, 5
• 2.10 or lower — 1, 3, 3, 2, 3
• 2.00 or lower — 1, 3, 2, 2, 2

One more measure — the Top 25 First-Half ERAs of 2010-14:

Breakdown by season: 6 in 2010; 6 in 2011; 4 in 2012; 3 in 2013; and 6 in 2014. This year’s top three rank #3, 4 and 12 in the five-year span. Is that special?

What about single-game brilliance in the first halves of 2010-13? Anything like Kershaw’s no-hitter? Well, sure:

• In June 2012, Matt Cain tossed a perfect game with 14 Ks, a 101 Game Score just one point below Kershaw’s epic.
• Roy Halladay had an 11-K perfecto in May 2010, won by 1-0.
• Last April, Yu Darvish came within one out of a 14-K perfecto. If his last batter had not singled, but fanned, Darvish would have matched Kershaw’s 102 Game Score.
• Also last April, Anibal Sanchez whiffed 17 with one walk over eight scoreless innings, matching the MLB strikeout high of the last 10 years.

For longer stretches of first-half brilliance:

• Remember Justin Verlander in 2011? After a May no-hitter, he rolled to the Break with 7 games that totaled 5 runs in 56.1 IP, 64 Ks and 7 walks. His 0.87 WHIP in that first half was the best in this period, except for Kershaw and Sale this year — and while those southpaws have less than 100 innings, Verlander had 151 IP, #1 in this period.
• That same year, Cliff Lee hurled three straight CG shutouts in June (34 scoreless innings), and four SHO by the Break, the most since 1992.
• In 2012, Ryan Dempster had a 5-start scoreless streak that spanned the Break and lasted 33 innings. Same year, Brandon Beachy allowed a .171 BA in the first half, the best since 2000.
• Schoenfield cited King Felix’s active streak of 11 starts with 7+ IP and 2 runs or less, unmatched since 1986. That’s terrific — but would you rather have his 11-game totals of 14 runs in 85 IP, or Josh Johnson’s 8 runs in 79 IP for his last 11 games before the 2010 Break? I’ll take my chances on the bullpen filling that 6-inning gap without letting in 6 runs.

Taking it all in context, the elite pitching first halves of 2014 just don’t seem unusual. You know that I’m all for saluting the best. But it’s a big step from counting off “Kershaw, Wainwright and Felix,” to a concept like “pitchers dominating.”

Were pitchers “dominating” in the first half of 1997, when 19 had ERA under 3.00, led by Roger Clemens (1.69) and Pedro Martinez (1.74)? Or in ’95, with Greg Maddux at 1.64 ERA and 0.78 WHIP, and Hideo Nomo 1.99 and 11.9 SO/9? What about 2000, with Pedro at 1.44, 0.77 WHIP, 11.9 SO/9, and Randy Johnson at 1.80 with 12.3 SO/9 and a 14-2 record? Sure, those were some pantheon guys. But isn’t Kershaw the same? Isn’t King Felix more than halfway to the Hall, still just 28? Isn’t Wainwright a big star having maybe his best year?

Look, we know scoring is down in recent years; first-half scoring fell almost 8% from 2010 to this year. So it’s natural to want to link that with star turns by starting pitchers. But the truth is more faceted. Some of the scoring drop comes from relievers: While the first-half RA/9 for starters fell 7% from 2010-14, the reliever RA/9 fell by 12%. Some comes from a general drop in walks — so far, this year has the lowest walk rate since 1968, perhaps as pitchers became less afraid of home runs. From 2010-14, walks are down 9%, batting average just 2%.

So, to lay the scoring drop on a new breed of starting pitchers with more dominant stuff doesn’t work for me. But let’s hear what you think.