After popping his 49th homer of the season against the Yankees on Tuesday night, slugger Chris Davis now stands just 1 blast shy of the Baltimore Orioles single-season record, set by Brady Anderson back in 1997. Davis still has an outside shot at making a run at Roger Maris‘ AL record of 61 homers as well, but that’s looking a little bit more like wishful thinking as we wind toward October.

But even without the AL home run record, what Chris Davis has done this season has been nothing short of phenomenal. He’s entirely remade his swing, showed remarkable plate discipline, and perhaps most importantly, Davis has finally figured out how to hit an off-speed pitch.

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“Yadi knows everything about every single hitter, exactly what to throw. If you execute your pitches and throw them where he wants the ball, you’re going to get hitters out, have a better ERA, win the game. I seriously believe that all the success I’ve had is totally on him.” – St. Louis Cardinals’ rookie Shelby Miller

“It’s not just instinct. It’s sense, based on how a hitter’s standing, how he responds to the pitch or two before, and he’s very creative in how he makes his adjustment based on what he sees with the hitter and knowing what his pitcher can do. That’s art.” – Former manager Tony La Russa

“With him catching me, I never had to worry. It’s never like he was back there guessing. He gets to know his pitchers. He got to know me, what I like to do, my strengths and weaknesses. When I got into trouble, what do we need to do to get me out of it? Those are the things he not only has to remember for one guy, but a whole staff. The ability to do that is pretty amazing.” – Milwaukee Brewers’ pitcher Kyle Lohse

The quotes listed above are just a small sampling of the praise that has generally rained down on Yadier Molina over the past 5 seasons or so. He’s widely regarded as the best defensive catcher in baseball thanks to his sublime framing skills, his Howitzer arm, and a glove so soft that Adam Wainwright once described it as a pillow. But can the mighty Molina really lower a pitcher’s ERA while taking runs off the board, as Shelby Miller and so many others claim? Or is there something else at work here? Let’s dive into the data to see if we can catch a glimpse at the inner workings of St. Louis’ finest:

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A season ago Detroit Tigers’ slugger Miguel Cabrera became the first player in 45 years to lead his league in batting average, home runs, and RBI, which earned him a historic Triple Crown. As an encore, the Tigers’ 3rd baseman decided he was going to be even better. With yet another multi-hit, multi-RBI game on Sunday, the Cabrera joined Jimmie Foxx and Babe Ruth as the only players in major league history with at least 120 RBIs, 40 home runs and a .350 average in their first 116 games of a season. That’s some pretty exclusive company that Cabrera’s rubbing elbows with and barring an absolutely massive upset, his efforts should lead to a 2nd straight MVP award.

But how did we get to this point? Even dating back to his days as a Florida Marlin, it’s fairly obvious that the potential for greatness was always there, so what unlocked it? How was Miguel Cabrera able to go from perennial All-Star to best hitter alive?

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With yet another brilliant start in a 4-1 win in Tampa Bay on Friday night, Giants’ starter Madison Bumgarner made a little bit of franchise history. The lanky lefty is currently on a nine-start streak of pitching at least seven innings while allowing two earned runs or less. That stands as the second-longest in franchise history, behind Ferdie Schupp of the then New York Giants, who had 12 such starts between the 1916 and 1917 seasons. This impressive streak has not only produced the lowest ERA of Bumgarner’s young career (2.69), but it’s also planted the 24-year-old firmly in the middle of the Cy Young race.

The Giants’ de facto ace is showing no signs of slowing down either, especially after tying his season-high in strikeouts with 11 against a baffled Rays lineup. He was clinical with the slider, throwing the pitch a season-high 53 times with an impressive 35 of those tosses going for strikes. That’s been par for the course for Bumgarner this season because no pitcher in baseball favors his slider as much as the Giants’ lefty.

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Smashing success and Philadelphia Phillies’ baseball are two phrases that haven’t been uttered in the same sentence very often over the 131 year history of the franchise. No professional sports team has suffered more defeats and few teams have tasted glory less often than the boys in Philadelphia. By the time the Phillies moved out of Veteran’s Stadium one magical, Steve Carlton-fueled run in 1980 was all that stood between the Phillies and an 0-for-the-century.

But with the move to shiny, new Citizens Bank Park in 2004 came a shiny, new ball club. In 2005 the team hired Charlie Manuel, who has been the most successful manager in franchise history, and gave the full-time 1st base job to Ryan Howard, who would go onto win the Rookie of the Year Award and then an MVP.  2006 saw the arrival of Cole Hamels, a future World Series MVP who fit nicely alongside a deep, talented offense chalked full of All-Stars. By 2007 the franchise had captured their first division title in 14 years, which would set off a run of 5 straight NL East crowns. And then in 2008 they finally hit pay dirt, capturing a World Series title in 5 games over the Tampa Bay Rays.

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With division and wild card rival Tampa Bay coming into town for a 3 game set, the Yankees were in dire need of a dominate performance from their $182 million dollar staff ace. New York entered play on Friday just 2.5 games behind Baltimore in the chase for the 2nd Wild Card and with the newly re-acquired Alfonso Soriano en tow, the deficit was looking a little more manageable. Unfortunately for New York CC Sabathia may no longer be the ace he once was. Heck, right now he isn’t even the ace of his own staff. That designation belongs to Hiroki Kuroda and his shiny 2.51 ERA.

After Friday night’s shellacking , CC Sabathia now has an ERA of 4.65. That mark stands as the highest of his career. It’s worse than the 4.38 ERA he posted as a rookie in 2001 when hitters were pummeling pitchers into submission night after night. And his ERA isn’t the only problem. The big lug is allowing more hits and homers than at any point in his career and more disturbingly, his fastball velocity is sitting 2 mph below his career norm.

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There haven’t been too many bright spots in Chicago Cubs baseball over the past few seasons. Apart from Darwin Barney’s spectacular defense at 2nd, the release of Carlos Marmol and some savvy trades that ultimately led to 1st baseman Anthony Rizzo, the bleacher bums haven’t had too much to cheer about since 2008. Starlin Castro was one of those bright spots.

Over the past 3 seasons the Cubs’ shortstop has managed to hit .298/.336/.425 with averages of 9 homers, 9 triples, and 32 doubles per year. That’s excellent production at the plate out of the shortstop position and all those hits netted Castro a pair of All-Star appearances. Castro’s defense at the position has never been up to snuff, but he made positive strides with both his glove and his arm a year ago, and at 23 the hope was that he still had room to improve.

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This wasn’t how things were supposed to be for the New York Yankees. The All-Star cavalry was supposed to return to buoy what is an otherwise uninspiring roster of 30-something misfits. Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira were supposed to return to spell the likes of Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay in a spirited 2nd half sprint to the playoffs. But that’s not exactly how things have worked out in the Bronx. Teixeira’s now done for the year thanks to surgery, Granderson played in 8 whole games before hitting the DL again, and the entire left side of the infield has fewer at-bats than All-Star appearances.

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For the better part of the past 6 years, Josh Hamilton has been an absolute force for pitchers to deal with. Just look at his list of accomplishments: one MVP award, 5 All-Star appearances, a majestic power display in the ’08 Home Run Derby, 2 AL pennants, and a .304/.363/.549 slash line with 161 homers to boot. Pitchers just couldn’t figure this guy out and thanks in part to Hamilton, the Rangers were able to have more success over the past 5 years than at any other point in the franchise’s history.

But the shine started to fade on Hamilton sometime around midseason last year. The then-Ranger struggled mightily during the 2nd half of 2012, hitting .259 (compared to .308 before the break), while dealing with a myriad of personal and health issues. As the offseason rolled around the Rangers decided that Hamilton’s baggage outweighed his production. Instead, the division rival Los Angeles Angels swooped in to nab Hamilton in the hopes that they could form a modern day Murderer’s Row.

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Seemingly lost amid all the story lines about Bryce Harper’s knee, Stephen Strasburgh’s right arm, and the Nationals disappointing .500 season in general has been the ascension of Jordan Zimmermann into the circle of elite pitchers. Zimmermann’s dominance over Major League hitters may not be as overpowering as a guy like Clayton Kershaw or as flashy as a pitcher like Felix Hernandez, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive. Instead, Jordan Zimmermann suffocates the life out of an opposing lineup by relentlessly pounding the bottom corners of the strike zone with a fastball that hums and a slider that slices. He invites, no he implores batters to hit weak ground outs into guys who know how to flash the leather and he knows how to put a hitter away once he gets the opportunity.

Thursday’s outing against a potent Colorado lineup was just another brilliant start in a season full of them. Zimmermann threw first-pitch strikes to 23 of the 31 batters he faced and in a display of pinpoint accuracy he delivered strikes on 85 of the 112 pitches he threw (76%). The last time a Nationals’ pitcher threw at least 85 strikes it was back in 2005, the franchise’s inaugural season in Washington when Esteban Loaiza needed 128 pitches to get the job done. That barrage of perfectly located pitches by Zimmermann generated 16 outs in a row at one point and a season-high 9 strikeouts for the Nationals’ righty.

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