WACKIEST STAT OF THE SEASON FOR EVERY MLB TEAM

Baseball's numbers may not necessarily lie, but they don't always make a lot of sense.

Consider that a pitcher traded at the deadline made a leap not seen in 104 years, a leadoff hitter has more than three times as many home runs as steals, and one franchise steeped in fundamentals will lead a league in errors for the first time in six decades.

Here are some numbers from each of the 30 clubs that not only explain how they have performed to this point in the season but also hint at how the game has changed in recent years. And some will just leave you scratching your head. (Note: Stats are through Wednesday's games.)

NL CENTRAL

PITTSBURGH PIRATES

The Pirates have tried 11 leadoff hitters, the most in the majors and equal to the Indians, Mariners and Rangers combined. Even catcher Francisco Cervelli got a try, starting a game atop the order for the first time in his career on May 13. Pittsburgh leadoff hitters rank 25th in the majors with a .300 OBP.

CHICAGO CUBS

Triple-digit velocity has become increasingly commonplace, which makes Kris Bryant's double off the Cardinals' Jordan Hicks on May 5 even more impressive. Bryant pulled a 101.9 mph heater to left field, the fastest pitch to result in a hit this season.

CINCINNATI REDS

No team coughs up the long ball like the Reds, who have allowed 164 homers and are on pace to lead the majors in that category for the third straight season. The Reds allowed 258 home runs in 2016 and 248 last year, the two highest totals in big league history. It has been a team effort, with six Reds allowing double-digit totals.

MILWAUKEE BREWERS

The Brewers have stolen third base 21 times and are on pace to lead the majors in that category for the third straight season. Now if they only had worked out a deal for the Royals' Whit Merrifield, who has nine steals of third all by himself.

ST. LOUIS CARDINALS

What has happened to the Cardinal Way, which stresses fundamentals? The Cardinals are tied for the major league lead with 88 errors, including a dozen by infielder Jedd Gyorko. St. Louis has not led the league in errors since 1958, when second baseman Don Blasingame committed 26 but still made his lone All-Star appearance.

NL EAST

ATLANTA BRAVES

The Braves come to the plate ready to hack, and it is more than a passing trend. Atlanta takes an MLB-low 3.76 pitches per plate appearance, and that's not just because of the emergence of Ozzie Albies (3.44 PPA). The Braves hold the lowest PPA (average number of pitches per plate appearance) in baseball (3.76) since Brian Snitker took over as manager on May 17, 2016.

MIAMI MARLINS

Starlin Castro owns a respectable .289 batting average, but that jumps to a National League-best .463 in at-bats that end against a shift, second in the National League (among batting title qualifiers, 19-for-41, six RBIs).

NEW YORK METS

Rookie manager Mickey Callaway was a genius when his Mets won 11 of their first 12 games. But it didn't take long for the bottom to drop out, as the Mets played at a .315 clip over their next 54 games to fall to 28-38 by June 15, the quickest a team has gone from 10 games over .500 to 10 games under from the start of a season. It hasn't gotten any better since.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES

Right-handers started 267 straight games for the Phillies before lefty Ranger Suarez made his debut against the Reds on July 26. The previous southpaw starter for Philly, on Sept. 28, 2016, was Adam Morgan, who has become a dependable performer in the bullpen. The Orioles and Indians are the only teams not to use a left-handed starter this season.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS

Tanner Roark has the only triple by a pitcher this season. He sliced a ball down the right-field line that got past Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo on July 13. Joel Hanrahan and Livan Hernandez are the only other Nats pitchers with three-base hits since the franchise relocated from Montreal, and all three were against the Mets.

NL WEST

ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS

Zack Greinke is the first pitcher with three stolen bases in a season since Tom Browning of the Reds in 1988. Greinke came around to score on two of those occasions, on singles by Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock.

COLORADO ROCKIES

The Rockies rank third in the majors with 82 first-inning runs and fourth with 67 second-inning runs. That might have something to do with Coors Field but doesn't explain why Colorado also has scored the fewest eighth-inning runs (27).

LOS ANGELES DODGERS

Forty-one position players have combined for 52 pitching appearances totaling 48⅔ innings this season, but outfielder Kike Hernandez became the first full-time position player in MLB history to allow a walk-off homer when Trevor Plouffe of the Phillies ended a 16-inning marathon on July 24. The Dodgers used eight pitchers before turning to Hernandez, who had never pitched in 458 previous games.

SAN DIEGO PADRES

Just one major leaguer has hit three home runs of at least 456 feet, and his name isn't Stanton or Judge. It's the Padres' Franchy Cordero, whose résumé includes the longest home run of the year, a 489-foot blast off the D-backs' Matt Koch on April 20. Cordero, who has been sidelined since late May following elbow surgery, has 10 homers in 70 big league games, with seven of those traveling at least 420 feet. The Padres have two of the five longest homers in the majors this season. Franmil Reyes added a 477-foot homer off Jon Lester of the Cubs on Aug. 5.

SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

We know not enough baseballs are put in play, but give Belt credit for trying. The Giants first baseman had a 21-pitch at-bat against the Angels' Jaime Barria on April 23, the most on record since the stat was first compiled in 1988. The plate appearance lasted about 13 minutes, included 16 foul balls and ended with a fly ball to right field. The top-five list includes current Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who went 18 pitches deep for the Dodgers in 2004.

AL EAST

BALTIMORE ORIOLES

Barring a late surge, the lowest batting average in baseball history since 1900 will belong to Chris Davis. With a .157 average through Wednesday, Davis could shatter the .179 mark set by Rob Deer of the Tigers in 1991 and matched by Dan Uggla of the Braves in 2013. For good measure, Davis also struck out at least once in 27 straight games. Take heart, Orioles fans: There are only four more years and $68 million left on his contract after this season.

There's turnover at the top after contenders added talent via trades. Who did the most to help their postseason bids?

BOSTON RED SOX

Mitch Moreland hit four triples in a 26-game span from late May to late June after collecting three in his first 957 career games. The 32-year-old first baseman has not had another three-base hit since. All four came at Fenway Park, the second-most-conducive park for three-base hits, according to ESPN Park Factors.

NEW YORK YANKEES

When Zach Britton was traded from the last-place Orioles (29-73 on the day of the deal) to the Yankees (64-36 at the time of his New York debut), he improved 36 games in the standings. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that is the largest win-loss improvement for a player switching teams during the season in 114 years. In 1904, pitcher Doc Marshall went from the 21-60 Phillies to the 59-23 New York Giants, a 37½-game leap. A week before the Britton deal, Manny Machado had improved 25½ games when he was traded by Baltimore to the Dodgers.

TAMPA BAY RAYS

The longest drought for a team without a complete game belongs to the Rays, who have not had a pitcher go the distance since Matt Andriese against Oakland on May 14, 2016, a span of 404 games (through Aug. 2). The longest outing in that span is eight innings -- on multiple occasions -- and the only Rays starter to even take the mound in the ninth was Alex Cobb, who allowed a double and home run before being replaced in an outing in July 2017. Given the way manager Kevin Cash uses relievers to begin games; this streak could just be getting started.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS

The sacrifice bunt has fallen out of favor, and the Blue Jays are doing their best to make it extinct. The Blue Jays' three sacrifices are the fewest in baseball. Toronto is one of seven clubs in single digits. Teams are averaging 0.17 sacrifice bunts per game, the lowest mark in modern history and a 50 percent decline from 2011. By the way, none of the three Toronto sacrifices helped produce a run.

AL CENTRAL

CHICAGO WHITE SOX

James Shields has thrown a pitchout on four occasions, which ... leads the major leagues! The pitchout has rather quickly joined baseball's endangered species list -- there have been just 60 through Aug. 9, a pace of around 85 for the season. As recently as 2011, there were 554 pitchouts.

CLEVELAND INDIANS

Pitch counts be damned. The Indians have had a pitcher throw at least 110 pitches on 22 occasions. That is one more than the D-backs, Tigers, Dodgers, Marlins, Brewers, Yankees, Athletics, Pirates, Mariners, Rangers and Blue Jays combined. Honorable mention goes to the Nationals, whose pitchers have reached that mark 21 times.

DETROIT TIGERS

The Tigers rank 25th in the majors with a .239 batting average and, barring a late surge, will see their team batting average decline for a fifth straight season. The White Sox managed to do it a record seven straight years from 1961 to 1967.

KANSAS CITY ROYALS

The best season for anyone on the Royals may belong to replay coordinator Bill Duplissea, a former minor leaguer and bullpen catcher. Through Wednesday, the Royals had an MLB-best 22 calls overturned and were successful on 78.6 percent of their challenges, also tops in baseball.

MINNESOTA TWINS

Are Twins players reluctant to take one for the team? Minnesota batters have been hit by pitches 23 times, just a fraction of the 72 bumps and bruises absorbed by the MLB-leading Rays (73). The Rays' Carlos Gomez has been hit 18 times all by himself.

AL WEST

HOUSTON ASTROS

George Springer has more than three times as many homers (19) as stolen bases (six), which makes him a poster child for the new breed of leadoff hitters. There have been 467 homers by those at the top of the order as compared with 359 thefts. This will very likely be the first season since 1955 with more dingers than steals out of the leadoff spot. In case you're wondering, Bill Bruton of the Milwaukee Braves led the majors that year with 25 steals.

LOS ANGELES ANGELS

Thanks to a rash of injuries, the Angels have used 53 players as of Thursday, the most in the majors and two short of the franchise record set last year. They already have rolled out 30 pitchers, one short of the club record set in 2017, and we still have September call-ups on the horizon to pad those numbers.

OAKLAND ATHLETICS

After shedding the tarp atop Mount Davis, the A's drew an Oakland Coliseum-record 56,310, the largest crowd in the major leagues this season, for a Bay Bridge series game against the Giants on July 21. Before the A's started turning around their season in mid-June, there were a dozen games at the Coliseum with announced attendance of less than 10,000.

SEATTLE MARINERS

The Mariners are in the middle of the playoff picture despite a minus-29 run differential. The Athletics, by contrast, are a plus-58. Making the playoffs with a negative run differential is unlikely but not unprecedented. It has happened five times in non-strike seasons, most recently by the 2007 Diamondbacks. The 2005 Padres have the worst differential (minus-42) among postseason qualifiers.

TEXAS RANGERS

Another example of how strikeouts are taking over the game: The Rangers eked out a 4-3 win over the Astros on July 29 despite striking out 19 times. It was the first time since 1997 and just the third time since 1908 that a club won a nine-inning game whiffing that many times.