Because I missed Monday (was day-to-day with a nasty flu-like thing), I'll go ahead and post again this morning, and let TCM come along later, if he's so inclined, with his usual weekly bit.

In the first few days and weeks of the season, it's silly to look at the numbers as though the players might keep up their current paces all year, because the numbers are cartoonish and there's just no point in pretending that anything like that might happen. Likewise, once you get into late May or so, numbers have started to stabilize, so it's not all that fun to look at them, because they look just like the numbers from last year and the year before. So right now we're in kind of the sweet spot for "on pace" looks: the numbers are still pretty silly, but they've been doing their thing for a full month now, so it's not totally impossible to see them keeping it up for five more.

Entering Tuesday, every team had played between 25 and 27 games. I'm just going to pretend they've all played 27 (only four actually have), because that's exactly 1/6 of a season, and it's not like this is some sort of scientific exercise. Here's a look around your on-pace leaderboard through May 3. I'm just looking at hitters; one could have a lot of fun with Ubaldo Jimenez's numbers, but it makes no sense to say, for instance, that he's on pace to go 36-0, when he won't even start 36 games (no one has since 2003).

Home Runs: Paul Konerko, 72
Konerko, who is 34 and has seemed on the verge of collapse for about three years now, has hit three more HR than anyone else in the league and is already almost halfway to his 2009 total of 28. He's getting a little more air under the ball than he has for the last three years, and he's striking out a ton less: he's struck out in 10.7% of his plate appearances after 16.3% last year, and before that hadn't been below 18% since 2003. Mostly, though, it's just going a ton farther when he does hit it in the air. His HR/FB rate has doubled since last year, and only four of the 12 have been classified as "just enough" by HitTracker Online, with none labeled "lucky." I don't think Bonds' record is in jeopardy, but Konerko's personal high of 41 certainly could be.

Hits: Austin Jackson, 258
Ichiro! holds the all-time record at 262, and the rookie record with 242.
Those numbers appear safe. Jackson leads the AL in strikeouts and has hit just one home run; his league-leading .377 batting average is supported by a ludicrous .532 average on balls in play. Then again, he's struck out just twice in his last seven games (hitting .516 in that span), after striking out at least once in each of his first nineteen major league games, so he could be making some adjustments. Still, he's just a career .288 minor league hitter. He's given Tigers fans a lot of reasons for optimism, but he's not another Ichiro, at least not yet (he's also four years younger than rookie Ichiro was).

Triples: Nyjer Morgan, 30
Only three players have ever hit 30+, none since 1912, and only seven since 1950 have hit more than 20. Morgan seems to have the speed and gap power to challenge Curtis Granderson's 23 in 2007, but then he only hit 7 last year (and only 15 doubles). So maybe that's just an unformed impression I get.

Caught Stealing: Matt Kemp, 36
Rickey Henderson was caught 42 times in 1982, but he was successful a record 130 times that year. Matt Kemp is on pace to go 18-for-54. No one else since 1950 has been caught more than 33 times, and the record for CS with fewer than 20 steals is held by Alfredo Griffin, who went 18-for-41 in 1980. Kemp was a very successful thief in 2008 and 2009, but he was also a not-unbelievably-dreadful fielder in those seasons, and he hasn't managed to keep that up in 2010 either. Something's up with that guy.

Total Bases: Robinson Cano, 426
That would be sixth all-time, and first in the last sixty years (one ahead of Sammy Sosa's 2001). The record for second basemen is Rogers Hornsby's 450 in 1922.

Walks: Justin Morneau and Nick Johnson, 132
That's not a record-setting number or anything, but would be notable for two reasons: one, Morneau's total would be somewhat close to double his previous season high (he's increased his BB% every year since 2006, but this so far has been a huge jump); and two, if Nick Johnson were actually allowed to play a full season as the Yankees' DH without ever collecting any hits, his line (.164/.363/.224, 132 BB, 54 H) would be one of the oddest in history.

Hit by Pitches: Prince Fielder, 42
That doesn't mean a lot to most people, because you don't often think about how often batters get plunked in a season. But only two guys have ever been hit more than 42 times; Hughie Jennings did it three times, all before 1900, and the amazing Ron Hunt attracted 50 baseballs to his person in 1971. Prince has twice placed in the NL's top ten in HBP, but he's no Ron Hunt, and his current 7 is already halfway to his previous career high.

Strikeouts: Justin Upton, 228
Upton would top his teammate Mark Reynolds' 2009 all-time record by five. Reynolds himself is on pace for 198 -- a nice improvement over last year, but it would give him more strikeouts in his first four years (754) than Stan Musial had in his 22 years (696) or Ted Williams in his 19 (709), or even the much more modern Wade Boggs in his 18 (745). Pretty impressive, really.