On Friday, the 1,215th game of the 2021 MLB season was played. It's an odd number to take note of, but aficionados of baseball's annual schedule know it's the halfway mark for a season with 30 teams playing 162 games apiece.
That means we've got less 2021 baseball before us than we have behind us. A sad thought, but after last year's pandemic-clipped 60-game schedule, to be able to even think in these terms feels like a triumph. The old saying is that the baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. Last season wasn't so much a sprint as it was a heat in a 100-meter high hurdle race, because every few steps there was some kind of obstacle.
This season feels like ... a baseball season. It has been eventful, as all seasons are, and this one perhaps more than most. There have been narratives about a return to dead-ball-era levels of offense (an exaggeration, as it turns out), a wave of injuries across the sport (sadly, this one is true) and the recent controversy over baseball's crackdown on sticky stuff. These things barely scratch the surface of what we've seen.
For a quick recap, and a peek ahead, let's comb through a half-season of results for the most eye-catching developments while sifting for evidence that might suggest what may yet happen.
