The AL continues to slowly (but inexorably) gain the upper hand as we move from "drip" to "steam" here in the early weeks of summer. (Congressionally-mandated digression™ here: have you noticed that "summer" actually begins on the longest day of the year and then proceeds to dial itself back to even-steven at the fall equinox? Perhaps it's just the seasonal depression kicking in, but that's psychologically all wrong...we should have half of summer building up to an apex, and the other half declining to a mid-point between solstice and equinox. This way, the buildup goes right into a letdown...and that just sucks.)
Here are some interleague statistics you almost certainly have not seen anywhere else...in 184 games thus far, the NL has outhomered the AL 196-173.The AL has walked almost one hundred more times, however (548-458) and has the lead in OBP, .313 to .306.
The NL has been hit by pitches about 50% more often (79 to 52).
The AL has more SH, 61 to 49. (We aren't currently able to break that down to games played in AL and NL parks, but we want to. We also want summer to have its longest day in the middle of the season, but you already knew that. Or were trying to forget...)
The NL has twice as many triples (40 to 20). The AL has more doubles (330 to 310).
Two players have hit three HRs in an interleague game this season. Both play in the NL: Dioner Navarro (Cubs) and Ryan Zimmerman (Nationals). They join sixteen other hitters to do so. The most surprising names on that list: Tyler Houston (in 2000), Hee-Seop Choi (in 2005), and Chris Heisey (in 2011). Maybe we'll tell you the rest of those names one day; then again, maybe we won't.
So let's get depressed as we sign off...from the beginning of summer to the start of fall, we lose 2.6 minutes of daytime per day. That's not quite as depressing as the same rate of loss from fall to winter, but it still sucks.
But hey...have a happy Fourth anyway.
