By Michael Gallagher

Anytime someone is on pace to break a record, good or bad, it’s always interesting to see why they are on the pace. Chris Davis is on pace to shatter Mark Reynolds’ record of 204 strikeouts (on pace for 257). Here are some stats on Davis that are pretty funny and a slew of other neat stats that follow:

He is batting .059 when he has two strikes on him.

He swings and misses 43.2 percent of the time (most in MLB).

When the ball is in the strike zone, Davis swings and misses 39.6 percent of the time (Reynolds is second-to-last with 31 percent)

Marco Scutaro leads the league with a 94.6 percent contact rate. Scutaro also swings at just 10.6 percent of the pitches outside of the strike zone.

Bengie Molina walks only 1.1 percent of his plate appearances.

Adrian Gonzalez hits a home run on 35.6 percent of his fly balls in play. Chris Davis is second at 28.6 percent.

Nick Johnson hits a line drive 30.2 percent of the time (line drives are hits about 70 percent of the time).

Alfonso Soriano gets a fastball on just 44.3 percent of the pitches he sees (Howard is second with 47.5 percent and Francoeur is third with 48.5 percent).

Albert Pujols has been intentionally walked 16 times this season. Justin Morneau is a distant second with seven.

When the ball is outside of the strike zone, Dustin Pedoria makes contact 89.5 percent of the time he swings.

Chipper Jones (92.8 percent) and Emilio Boniface (93.2 percent) have the worst fielding percentage in the league. Kevin Kouzmanoff has the best percentage among third basemen with 99.2 percent.

Joe Saunders has allowed a league-low 11.2 line-drive percentage on balls in play. Josh Beckett and Justin Verlander are on the other end.

Brett Myers allows home runs on 23.9 percent of his fly balls. Zack Greinke hasn’t given up a bomb yet.

Barry Zito’s run support per game is only 2.15. Kevin Slowey gets 8.36.

Rick Porcello has yet to get an out via the infield fly. Johan Santana gets an infield fly on 22.9 percent of the balls in play.

Jon Lester (.374), Tim Lincecum (.367), and Cliff Lee (.352) have the worst batting average on balls in play (BABIP) in the league. Johnny Cueto (.234) and Brian Tallet (.236) are the league leaders.

Justin Verlander’s fastball is the fastest among starters at 95.5 mph. Wakefield (72.1), Moyer (81), Livan Hernandez (84.6), and Doug Davis (85.1) are bringing up the rear. Verlander also leads with a slider at 89 mph.

Josh Beckett (91.9), Erik Bedard (90.7) and Roy Halladay (90.7) are the only three pitchers that have cut fastballs averaging over 90 mph.

Only seven starters in the league throw a split-finger fastball more than 1 percent of the time (Dan Haren, Randy Johnson, Braden Looper, Kenshin Kawakami, Manny Parra, Ryan Dempster, and Brad Penny). Twenty-three relievers throw the splitter more than 1 percent of the time. The closers are David Aardsma, Matt Lindstrom, Ryan Franklin, Kevin Gregg, Johnathan Papelbon, and Francisco.

Erik Bedard throws a curveball 34.5 percent of the time.

Aaron Cook throws a fastball 86.6 percent of the time.

Javier Vazquez is tied with Johan Santana for the NL strikeout crown with 86 punch outs.

Brett Myers and Scott Baker allow 2.4 home runs per nine innings.

Javier Vazquez leads the league with a 70.2 percent contact rate against. Jon Garland is last with 90.5 percent.

Batters swing at 52.6 percent of the pitches throw by Scott Baker. Johan is second with 51.9 percent and Joba Chamberlain has the lowest with 36.9 percent.

By Dan Angell

So we’re at the conference finals, with the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins now just three wins away from playing for hockey’s ultimate prize. But really, it seems like there are only two contenders for the Stanley Cup: the aforementioned Red Wings and Penguins. You might remember these teams from such matchups as last year’s Stanley Cup Finals.

Yes, same teams as last year. Amazingly, that hasn’t happened since 1984, when the Edmonton Oilers stopped the New York Islanders from winning a fifth consecutive Cup after the Isles swept them the year before. In fact, the Isles lost more games in that one Cup Finals than in the four they won, in which they lost three total. Just shows you don’t win four of these things by accident, folks.

To go back even further, the last time a team won consecutive Cups by beating the same team twice was in 1978, when the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins. Yes, two teams that are now in the same division met for the Cup two straight years. The NHL also thought it was a good idea to have Los Angeles and Pittsburgh in the same division for eight years. And people say Gary Bettman has caused the league problems.

But anyway, we’ve got some kind of history happening here, and things are set up perfectly for it. The San Jose Sharks aren’t here, and the Wings have already flown by the Anaheim Ducks. The Chicago Blackhawks are very inexperienced, don’t have a stud goaltender like Vancouver, don’t hit as much as Anaheim and aren’t as skilled with the puck as San Jose.

In the East, the Penguins don’t have to face the Boston Bruins or the New Jersey Devils, and they’ve already defeated the Washington Capitals and Alex Ovechkin. Instead, Crosby, Malkin and Friends get the Carolina Hurricanes, the East’s sixth-best team.

So let’s plan the parade in Detroit or Pittsburgh, right? Not exactly.

The Blackhawks might be young, but youth didn’t stop the Penguins from reaching the Stanley Cup Finals last year. They’ve got some experience in Martin Havlat, Brian Campbell and Nikolai Khabibulin, so they aren’t completely a group of wide-eyed kids. But the wide-eyed kids will have to be the difference. Put simply, the Blackhawks aren’t beating the Red Wings without Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane playing great. No goals and few shots aren’t going to cut it.

As for the Hurricanes, they’ve got a great weapon in their arsenal: Cam Ward. Nobody has beaten him in a playoff series so far, and the guy is a perfect 4-for-4 in Game 7s. Ward might be the best clutch performer there is today, and I’m not limiting that to just hockey.

But as good as Ward is, the Canes can’t win if they can’t outscore the Penguins. Crosby and Malkin have carried Pittsburgh all year long, and Carolina has no scorer to match them, even counting Eric Staal. They’ve got to win this series on the blue line, or Ward’s streak will be over.

So after all of that analysis, what’s my prediction for these conference finals?

Let’s plan the parade in either the Motor City or the Steel City. Nothing’s stopping history.