4 stat subplots entering MLB's fourth quarter

We are roughly three-quarters into Major League Baseball's 162-game regular season. As the 30 teams and nearly 800 active players head down the backstretch, statistical intrigue abounds.

Here are four stat subplots that are especially capturing my numerical attention:

Will L.A. Angels' Ohtani reach 50 home runs and 10 wins?

Offensively, Shohei Ohtani had 33 round-trippers at the All-Star break and, barring injury, appears to be a shoo-in for 50 home runs this season. But he's missed some action and his production has tailed off.

Ohtani slugged his 40th homer while hurling eight strong innings against the Detroit Tigers last Wednesday. He gave up just one run to boost his record to 8-1. It was his fourth win in as many starts - and his seventh consecutive victory overall.

Prediction: Ohtani will finish with 51 homers, 10 victories, the AL Most Valuable Player Award, and some down-ballot Cy Young Award votes.

Only Babe Ruth has ever come close to this double-duty dynamic. In his final two seasons with the Red Sox, 1918 and 1919, Ruth led the Major Leagues in home runs both years while also notching a combined 22 wins in 300 innings on the mound.

Will Abreu lead the AL in RBI for the third straight year?

Despite a modest .251 batting average (.268 with runners in scoring position), Jose Abreu keeps bringing home his White Sox teammates at a sizzling clip. His 91 RBI entering Saturday's action were two ahead of Boston's Rafael Devers and Toronto's Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for the AL lead.

The last American Leaguer to be RBI champ three straight times was Cecil Fielder of the Tigers (1990-1992). In the NL, the last player to do it was the Reds' George Foster from 1976-1978.

Will Toronto's Guerrero Jr. earn Triple Crown?

In his inaugural AL season of 1966, Frank Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles led all AL batters with 49 home runs, 122 RBI and a .316 batting average. But it was not a wire-to-wire feat of pacing the league in those three categories.

On Aug. 22 - exactly 55 years ago - he trailed teammate Boog Powell by six RBI and was nine points behind the Minnesota Twins' Tony Oliva (a reigning two-time batting champ) for highest average.

But Robinson kept steady while the others faltered. His Triple Crown and MVP Award were capped by the future Hall of Famer winning the World Series MVP as the O's swept the Dodgers.

Through Friday, Vladimir Guerrero's numbers resemble Robinson's at this point in the campaign. His 36 home runs were second only to Ohtani's 40, his 89 RBI were two shy of Abreu's AL lead, and his .312 batting average was within striking distance of leader Michael Brantley's .322.

If Ohtani gets hurt, or Guerrero gets hot, then a Triple Crown for the 22-year-old is within reach.

Will Cubs' Patrick Wisdom be 2021's King of Whiff?

There are two sides of the Wisdom coin - and they track closely with the MLB's feast-or-famine ways.

On the bright side, among the 250 batters with at least 240 plate appearances, the Cubs third baseman/first baseman ranks fifth in home run frequency.

After his solo shot Friday against the Royals, Wisdom's 19 home runs in 225 at bats (a homer every 11.84 at bats) trails only catcher Mike Zunino (9.65 at bats between homers), newly minted right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. (9.85), Ohtani (10.40), and Cubs ghost/Red Sox newcomer Kyle Schwarber (11.12).

All four were All-Stars this year, so that's heady company. Alas, as prolific as Wisdom has been in going yard, he's been even more of an outlier in grabbing some pine.

He hasn't played enough to lead the league in strikeouts - the Yankees' Joey Gallo, with 166, currently holds that dubious distinction. But Wisdom's strikeout rate of 39% (96 whiffs in 246 plate appearances) is the highest among that same group of 250 Major Leaguers.

For context, of the 137 players with enough plate appearances to qualify in this category, ex-Cub Javy Baez has the highest strikeout rate at 36.4% and only eight others (including Gallo and Ohtani) have a rate of 30% or higher.

• Matt Baron supplements his baseball brainpower with Retrosheet.org for research.