In March, I offered four storylines to watch this season in MLB. Since then another has emerged – seemingly out of nowhere – which I addressed a couple of weeks back: the topsy-turvy, bunched-together nature of the standings.

At the time, I wasn’t especially convinced of a singular root cause of the chaos until Miguel Rojas, the Dodgers’ veteran shortstop, unwittingly connected a pair of dots floating around in my mind. Specifically: Are MLB’s new rules designed to encourage aggressive base-stealing causing what we’re seeing? And if so, how?

Rojas spoke privately with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and connected those dots for his manager on Sunday in Kansas City. After Monday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, he connected the dots for the rest of us, too.

“Those teams that play fearless and kind of reckless have been our hump in the road,” Rojas explained. “It’s been Kansas City, the (Arizona) Diamondbacks earlier in the year, I think Cincinnati did it as well. They’re beating us on the bases without hitting extra bases, or longballs.”

Roberts was convinced.

“Miguel made good points,” he said. “A lot of teams now are playing with reckless abandon. Teams are playing with new, young players that are really talented that play the game differently than I grew up playing the game, and we grew up playing the game. There’s no rules that apply. They steal third base with two outs. They tag on shallow fly balls. They’re running the bases hard. And there’s been many times where I think we’ve been caught being surprised, not expecting guys to play that way. We’ve seen it time and again.”

Entering Wednesday – barely halfway through the regular season – the Tampa Bay Rays are leading MLB with 105 steals as a team. Last season, the Texas Rangers led MLB with a mere 128.

It isn’t just that teams are stealing more now than they did a year ago. Three of the top four teams in steals last season (Texas, Miami, Cleveland, Chicago) missed the playoffs. Their strategy reeked of desperation.

Now? Three of the top four teams (Tampa Bay, Cincinnati, Oakland, Arizona) would be in the playoffs if the season ended today. Stealing bases is something good teams do again.

The Oakland A’s do it, too. There isn’t a perfect correlation between base-stealing and team success – you have to be able to pitch, hit and field to win, after all – but as the season has worn on, the efficacy of stealing bases is becoming harder to ignore.

The Cleveland Guardians are a game under .500 through Tuesday with more stolen bases (68) than home runs (56). The Royals, 26th in slugging percentage and sixth in steals, beat the Dodgers in consecutive games last weekend in convincing fashion. To be clear, teams aren’t punching their ticket to the World Series simply by stealing a base. It’s just a much more helpful tactic for staying competitive when your other skills are lacking.

Count Roberts – a heady base-stealer in his playing days – among those who believe the rules limiting pickoff throws, and slightly widening the bases, are directly responsible for what we’re seeing in the standings.

“(The new rules) kind of gave teams that are equipped to be dynamic the freedom,” Roberts said.

So yes, the rules have been a major storyline this season, just not in the way many expected. If you were thinking the rules would distort the game into something unrecognizable, or fail to achieve their intended results, that hasn’t happened for the most part.

What it’s done is flatten the standings in favor of teams who are willing to adopt a more aggressive baserunning style, perhaps allowing them to steal a game from a more talented team by taking chances in a game they would otherwise lose.

As for the other major storylines I was watching this season, only some are playing out as expected. To recap:

1. The summer of Shohei

Shohei Ohtani trivia is becoming a subgenre of baseball trivia unlike any other, a series of fun facts that will bear repeating until they become believable. Just look at where he ranked in MLB in each of these categories through Tuesday:

Home runs: first

Total bases: first

OPS (On-base plus slugging percentage): first

Triples: first (tied)

RBIs: second (tied)

Opponents’ batting average: second

Strikeouts: third

I mean, c’mon. As long as he is healthy enough to pitch and hit, every summer could be the Summer of Shohei for years to come.

A spring to forget in San Diego

Speaking of teams built around aggressiveness, the Padres’ aggressive offseason spending has gotten them to fourth place in the National League West. At 40-46, the Padres are certainly capable of rattling off a strong run into contention. It’s just hard to see from here which of the three teams ahead of them – the Diamondbacks, Dodgers and San Francisco Giants – is most likely to lose ground.

Manny Machado and Yu Darvish are the easy scapegoats because of their subpar seasons, but the Padres’ malaise goes beyond two players. Their whole is simply lesser than the sum of their parts.

No country for old men (with one exception)

Justin Verlander began his age-40 season on the injured list. His numbers look decidedly average in 11 starts since returning. Max Scherzer, who turns 39 this month, is 8-2 while averaging more than a strikeout per inning, but his 4.03 ERA would be his highest in a full season since 2011.

Zack Greinke, 39, is 1-9 with a 5.44 ERA. Adam Wainwright, 41, had a 7.66 ERA in 11 starts before landing on the injured list this week. If you were among baseball’s best pitchers a decade ago, 2023 hasn’t been your year.

Unless your name is Clayton Kershaw.

There’s an entire story to be written about how he’s doing it this season – I’ll save that for when he returns from the injured list – but Kershaw is still evolving. Remarkably, he’s first in the National League in wins (10) and his 2.55 ERA is second, just a shade above his career 2.48 mark. He’s doing it by allowing baserunners (1.049 WHIP) at a lower rate than anyone in the NL, fashioning himself into a legitimate Cy Young Award contender again at age 35.

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