Whether or not it culminates in a championship, this has been a spectacular season for the Chicago Cubs. They entered Saturday with an MLB-best 90-50 record, and even that understates the team’s dominance.

So in this week’s contribution to USA Today Sports Weekly, I took a look at all the ways that the Cubs have lapped the rest of the league and went searching for comparable clubs. Maintaining their current pace for the next few weeks would put them in impressive company.

Aside from the link above, you can find this column in the print version of the magazine.

On a recent post, one of our regular HHS readers wondered about whether today’s highly specialized relief corps really helped preserve wins or prevent losses. That seemed like an interesting idea for a post, one that I’ll look at in two installments. Part 1 looks at starters and relievers across all teams, while Part 2 will focus in on individual pitchers.

More after the jump.

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Fans tuning into this season’s MLB games from the very first pitch have been treated to plenty of early offense. Leadoff hitters are launching home runs left and right (and center) at an especially high rate, and producing more first-inning offense than we’ve seen in decades.

Contributing to USA Today Sports Weekly, our own Aidan Jackson-Evans (@ajacksonevans on Twitter) tries to explain the phenomenon. Here is the link to his column.

Every week during the season, HHS submits analysis like this to the magazine. Check it out online, or consider picking up a print copy.

The Astros and Blue Jays began this month with a four game series in Houston that produced a total of just 15 runs for the two teams, but a bumper crop of 105 strikeouts. The latter figure and Toronto’s share (61 whiffs) are both reported to be records for a four game series. Despite all the swings and misses, Toronto took the set 3 games to 1, outscoring Houston 10-5, with seven of those ten runs coming off solo home runs.

That series is an extreme example but an instructive one on the growing trend in baseball of games dominated by home runs and strikeouts, two of the “three true outcomes” or TTOs (the third is walks), so named because the defense can do nothing to affect the results of those events.

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The Texas Rangers, leaders in the AL West, have posted a sparkling 19-7 (.731) record in one-run games this season, reminiscent of the Orioles’ record-breaking 29-9 (.763) mark in that situation in 2012. Barely missing the ALCS last season, could the Rangers be poised to take that next step this year? I’ll take a look at that question after the jump.

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Baseball-Reference‘s Play Index shows games since 1930 with starting pitchers batting in most batting order positions but most commonly, of course, in the number 9 hole. Next most common, by far, is batting the pitcher eighth, a tactic which has become more popular in recent years, exceeding 10% of team games this season and last. That is a huge departure from past practice as, other than in the mid-1950s and in 1998, there were virtually no such games before 2007. The question then is why has batting your pitcher eighth now come somewhat into vogue?

You can weigh in on this question after the jump.

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Ichiro Suzuki

HHS reader JDV noted that Indians’ shortstop Francisco Lindor had recently played the 162nd game of his career and had recorded 198 hits over that first full season equivalent. That seemed like an interesting idea for a post, so I’ll look more at that question after the jump.

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