ESPN.com · Jul 3, 2018
The state of MLB's pennant races: Get ready for some fun
It's July 3, and some of the season's major storylines -- as seems to be required protocol for baseball on an annual basis -- focus on what I would term negative news:
• Year-over-year attendance is down more than 2 million, with only nine teams showing per-game increases.
• The Orioles and Royals are historically awful, on pace for fewer than 50 wins. In the divisional era (since 1969), only the 2003 Tigers have done that. The White Sox haven't been much better.
• As strikeouts continue to soar, we've seen more strikeouts than hits. The overall MLB batting average of .246 is nine points lower than it was in 2017 and would be the lowest average since the .244 mark in 1972.