Dominance by pitchers a reminder of 1968

In 1968, Oakland's Bert Campaneris led the American League with 177 hits and Boston's Carl Yastrzemski paced the junior circuit with a .301 batting average. On the flip side, St. Louis' Bob Gibson put up a ridiculous 1.12 ERA, making Cleveland's Luis Tiant appear generous in comparison with his 1.60.

Think of it this way: Jim Kaat put up a 2.94 ERA for the Twins, and that converted into a 107 ERA+, meaning that Kaat - now an MLB Network analyst - was just 7 percent better than a league-average pitcher.

"In those times, it was more of a pitchers' game," Kaat said in a telephone interview. "The strike zones were more liberal. You didn't have hitters using the light bats. They didn't wear body armor.

"The pitchers were the boss then. Now, in today's time, it's more difficult to pitch than in any of my 50 years that I've watched big-league baseball."

That may be the case, but as the 2010 season heads toward the halfway mark, Kaat conceded that he was seeing the same thing as everyone else: Pitchers are dominating this season like they have not in recent times.

"I'm the same as you and a lot of people," Kaat said. "I can't figure it out."

Astros slugger Lance Berkman, a 12th-year veteran, said: "I definitely think that, since I've been in the league, this has been as good pitching overall as I've ever seen."

Rare looks at perfection

If it's not quite deja vu of 1968, this season has been defined by pitching excellence. By two perfect games (by Oakland's Dallas Braden and Philadelphia's Roy Halladay) and what should've been a third (by Detroit's Armando Galarraga).

By the emergence of not only Washington prodigy Stephen Strasburg, but also rookies such as Cincinnati's Mike Leake, St. Louis' Jaime Garcia and Tampa Bay's Wade Davis.

And by the success of young veterans such as Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez (who added a no-hitter to his resume), the Mets' Mike Pelfrey and the Yankees' Phil Hughes, Tampa Bay's David Price and Jeff Niemann and Boston's Clay Buchholz.

"It's very rare to find a righthanded pitcher who doesn't throw 95, that doesn't have the ability to get it up there," Berkman said. "That makes it tough."

So what's the common denominator? It's the question everyone's asking. "I don't know whether, all of a sudden, a sort of silver bullet is going to come up, and we'll know why," Kaat said.

Tom Tango, a freelance consultant to Major League Baseball and National Hockey League teams, said, "The real story is how, every year we get this 'scoring is down' story around May, and then by the end of the season, we can't tell one year apart from the other."

Through Sunday's action, the 2010 campaign had produced an average of 4.47 runs per team. The drop from this juncture in 2009 (4.64 runs per team) to now is 3.7 percent.

At similar points, we saw larger drops; for instance, there was a 5.9-percent differential from this point in 2006 (4.91 runs per team) to 2007 (4.62). Yet the two seasons wound up quite close to one another - 4.86 in '06 and 4.80 in '07.

However, in 17 years of research, going back to the 1994 season, the 4.47 figure ranks as the lowest. So there's something going on in at least this small sample.

What is it? Clearly, there are a few factors in play. Most industry folks believe that this represents the game's natural progression as we move further into an era of testing (and penalizing) for illegal performance-enhancing drugs. In 2000, a time perceived as the height of the "Steroids Era," we saw an average of 5.26 runs per team at this point, and 5.14 for the season.

This marks the seventh year in which players are tested for steroids, and the fifth in which amphetamines are screened, though, so it's not clear why this year would be especially meaningful in that regard.

Using knowledge

Just as drug testing has produced gradual results, so, too, could the education and information sharing that has come both in scouting opponents and in preparing a pitcher for the major leagues. While hitters also benefit from such developments, teams have been particularly focused on how to get the most from their pitchers because they are the teams' most valuable commodities.

"There are a lot of pitchers now who get two, three or four pitches over for strikes," Kaat said. "A lot of them are strikeout pitches. A guy like Strasburg, there's no way I could do that when I was his age."

Particularly interesting, when crunching the numbers, is how much better starting pitchers are throwing this season. In research dating to 2004, the starters' 2010 ERA of 4.16 is the best, by far, when compared with starters' ERAs through June of the six prior seasons. Whereas the relievers' ERA of 4.13 stands as consistent with the previous six years, with the notable exception of 2008 (3.83).

It could be, then, that - in accordance with the increase of information - managers have improved at knowing when to lift their starters for effective relievers. Relievers have struck out 7.8 batters per nine innings this year, an increase over the past seven seasons (through June, again). The previous high total was 7.4 through June 2008 and 2009.

Of course, it might just be a perfect storm of many pitchers - mostly young, but some older - blossoming for a variety of different reasons.

"I just think there are a lot of good, young pitchers that have come in," Berkman said. "The game has always been cyclical. We certainly, I think, are entering into a period where you've just got a lot of good, young, live arms that make it really tough."

After 1968, baseball tweaked its rules to make life easier for hitters, lowering the pitcher's mound by five inches and shrinking the strike zone. The vibe now is different, however. With the illegal PED years still fresh in fans' minds and time of game a regular source of complaint, many in the baseball community seem refreshed and re-energized by the dynamic change.

Ten years ago, the phrase "Chicks dig the long ball," from a Nike commercial, defined baseball. Now, if you want to draw a crowd, you try to get Strasburg to pitch at your ballpark.

If pitchers aren't quite the bosses of baseball again, they're definitely zooming up the corporate ladder.