A look at Chris Davis' season, both the strikeouts and the run production

Chris Davis has been striking out a lot. Anyone notice that? Does it come up much?

Davis has become the whipping boy for some of you and the guy to blame whenever the Orioles do not score many runs. The more he strikes out, the more venom and snark come with the comments.

Some just want him gone and are ready to drive him to the airport.

To that last group and those that focus only on the strikeouts, I say this: Production-wise, Davis is having his second-best season as an Oriole so far and some of you are missing it.

While he is on a pace to shatter the major league record for strikeouts in one season, Davis is also on a pace to produce power numbers that would be exceeded only by those during his 53-homer, 2013 season.

He entered Friday's game batting .261 with five doubles, six homers and 18 RBIs. He is on a pace for 31 doubles, 37 homers, 112 RBIs, a .511 slugging percentage and an .838 OPS.

If you don't consider that solid run production, you either can't get past the strikeouts or your standards are pretty high.

Davis' second-best O's season was his 2012 year when he hit 33 homers with 85 RBIs. His slugging then was .501 and the OPS was .827, both numbers less than this year before last night. (His slugging is now .490 and OPS .804 after last night.) Last year he slugged .404 with an OPS of .704, so he is way ahead of those numbers right now.

But if you want to talk strikeouts, and clearly many of you do, he is on a pace for 274. The most ever by a big leaguer in one year is 223 by Arizona's Mark Reynolds in 2009. Davis may shatter that record.

Davis strikes out a lot, we have always known that. His most strikeouts as an Oriole were the 199 in 2013, which was also the year with his most homers.

Davis' Oriole strikeout rate:
2012: 30.1
2013: 29.6
2014: 33.0
2015: 42.3

His strikeout rate is way up, that is obvious. The strikeouts come at times that hurt the team and anger the fans. But he is also batting .346 (9-for-26) with runners in scoring position. Over his last 11 games, he has four homers and 11 RBIs.

If he had 37 homers last year, he would have tied for second in the American League in homers. If had 112 RBIs, he would led the AL in that stat category. Again, these are good run-production numbers.

Davis is striking out too much, and some wonder if he could produce even more with less swinging and missing. Quite possibly, yes. But even with all the strikeouts - and he is 1-for-12 with eight strikeouts his past three games - Davis has put up solid run-production numbers.