The baseball season is seven days old. That's 49 days in dog days.

What has transpired in the past 168 hours?

Lots.

Check it out ...

Chris Shelton

The Tigers are a modern-day Murderer's Row. Chris "Sultan of Swat" Shelton is on pace for 135 home runs this season. That would have him breaking Barry Bonds' record of 73 somewhere around the All-Star break. Shelton - who is hitting .700 - is treatening to absolutely obliterate Hugh Duffy's 1894 record batting average of .4397. Shelton is also smoking the bigs with his 1.750 slugging percentage and if he can keep it up for the rest of the season, he would break Barry Bonds' 2001 mark of .8634, which broke Babe Ruth's 1920 mark of .8472, which broke Hugh Duffy's 1894 mark of .6939, which broke Tip O'Neill's 1887 mark of .6905.

 

Tip O'Neill had 52 doubles, 19 triples and 14 homers in that memorable 1887 season for the St. Louis Browns of the old American Association. That Browns team finished first in the AA, but lost in something called the "World Series" to the Detroit Wolverines of the National League. The Wolverines are no longer a National League team.

 

The Red Sox, Athletics and Mets are closing in on division titles. All three teams have a major-league low magic number of 155.

 

Brewers fans who demanded that the team bring back its old 1980s threads should feel guilty that their team isn't still making its run at the first undefeated season in major-league history. The Brewers wore throwbacks on Sunday, then proceeded to lose 7-0 to the Diamondbacks.

 

In fact, the Brewers and Tigers both lost Sunday, thus eliminating once again the chance a major-league team could finish a season 162-0. FOX Funhouse was starting to think that this was going to be the year a team finally went 162-0.

 

Going into Sunday's action, the Pirates were threatening to go 0-162. No team in major-league history has ever gone a full season without a win. Still, a 1-6 start translates into a 21-141 record (.1296296 winning percentage) over a full season. Remember when the Tigers finished the 2003 season with a record of 43-119? Yup, that was bad (.265 winning percentage). The old Cleveland Spiders finished the 1899 season with a record of 20-154 (good for a winning percentage of .12987). So, the Pirates are on pace for the worst record in baseball history. Some guy named "Coldwater" Jim Hughey lost 30 games for those 1899 Spiders. Can Oliver Perez equal that mark?

 

The exhilarating race for the most losses all-time continues (and will for perpetuity) between the A's and Phillies. Each team entered the 2006 season with 9,879 all-time losses (the Phillies have accumulated those losses going back to 1883, while the A's date back to 1901). After Sunday, the 1-5 Phillies have a three-game edge for most losses all-time over the 5-2 A's.

 

Mark it down ... the Red Sox's Curt Schilling and Oscar Villarreal are on pace to win 54 games. That would still come short of the major-league record of 59 wins recorded by "Old Hoss" Radbourn in 1884 for the National League champion Providence Grays.

 

Most people don't know what it's like to smack a ball into the outfield corner and leg out a triple. On Sunday, a player most people have never heard of - Cory Sullivan of the Rockies - did it twice in one inning.

 

The Yankees and Padres, defending division champions in their respective divisions, are both in last place. Should we expect this run of futile baseball to continue? Probably.

 

If the playoffs started today, baseball scribes everywhere would be gushing over the possibility of a Brewers-Tigers World Series.