A number of players are seeing power spikes totally out of line with anything they've done in the past, and I don't remember seeing this very often in previous years.

Here are a few:

Ryan Theriot: 2009 ABs: 125, 2009 HR: 5, pre-2009 AB: 1264, pre-2009 HR: 7. That's about 7.5 times his usual rate. Even when Brady Anderson hit 50, that was only about 3 times his usual rate.

Jason Bartlett: 2009 ABs: 128, 2009 HR: 5, pre-2009 AB: 1533, pre-2009 HR: 11. That's about six times his usual rate.

Joe Mauer: 2009 ABs: 48, 2009 HR: 5, pre-2009 AB: 2059, pre-2009 HR: 44. That's about five times his usual rate.

The samples are all small, and in Mauer's case, the power was almost overdue. But we're talking about players who established their norms over a few seasons and then totally departed from them in six weeks.

I realize home runs are up generally, but Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Ryan Braun - the usual sluggers - aren't ahead of their normal pace for the most part. (Carlos Pena and Adrian Gonzalez are, but nothing crazy at this stage of the season).

Also, Johnny Damon and Aaron Hill have nine and 10 homers, respectively, though both have shown |STAR|some|STAR| power in the past so even that's not as surprising as Mauer fresh off the DL and especially Bartlett and Theriot.