With major league baseball now enjoying its all-to-brief All-Star break (brief except for baseball fans, that is), there are some pretty compelling numbers when it comes to the Dodgers starting rotation.

First and foremost is the most obvious – the Dodgers starting rotation has more wins than any other team in all of baseball with 46. Their nearest competition are the Detroit Tigers with 42 wins and nearest competition in the National League the Cincinnati Reds with 40 wins.

And then there’s team Earned Run Average. Dodger starters lead all of baseball with their 3.11 ERA, with the Oakland Athletics’s coming in second at 3.17 and the Reds third at 3.30.

And while the Dodgers are second in the MLB in strikeouts with 536, they trail the Tampa Bay Rays by only four and are 27 ahead of the Angels of Anaheim and 30 ahead of the Atlanta Braves.

Zack Greinke currently leads all Dodgers in strikeouts with 127 – one more than Clayton Kershaw.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

As for batting average against, the Dodgers are a paltry sixth-best in the MLB at .246 but trail the MLB-leading Seattle Mariners by only .013.

As for walks, the Dodgers have allowed only 131 – two more than the Washington Nationals and five more than the New York Yankees; however, Dodger starters have thrown 584.1 innings as compared to the Nationals 558.0 and the Yankees 552.0.

Dodger starters have allowed exactly 202 earned runs, which is two more than the Athletics and three fewer than the Nationals.

But of all of these stats, the one that is absolutely incredible and perhaps the most telling of all is that the Dodgers are the only team in all of baseball to head into the All-Star break with three starters having 10 or more wins. Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke each have 11 (which is one behind the MLB-lead of 12) and Hyun-jin Ryu has 10. What makes this even more incredible is that Dan Haren is only two away with eight wins and Josh Beckett four away with six wins.

Hyun-jin Ryu collected his 10th win of the season on Sunday afternoon making the Dodgers the only team in the MLB to have three starters with 10 or more wins. Ryu also struck out a season-high ten batters in his 1-0 win over the Padres. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

And then, of course, there are the no-hitters of which the Dodgers have two. The only other team in all of baseball with a no-hitter this season are the San Francisco Giants.

Only 24 days after Josh Beckett threw his no-hitter in Philadelphia against the Phillies, Clayton Kershaw threw a near perfect game no-hitter at Dodger Stadium. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

When you put all of these things together, it really should come as no surprise that the Dodgers have the best record in the National League at 54-43 and the third best record in all of baseball behind only the A’s at 59-36 and the Angels at 57-37.

One can only wonder how every one of these things might have been even better had Dodgers ace and two-time NL Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw not missed six weeks of the season.

Is it time for Dodger baseball yet?