How do Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko compare to the rest of the AL's 3-4 duos?

If someone asked you back in February how the three-four punch of Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko would rank among similar tandems throughout the American League, you could be forgiven for thinking somewhere in the middle of the pack. After all, Dunn was coming off the worst season ever and eventually even automatons like Konerko slow down or cease to function at such a high rate. Surely they couldn't stack up with pairings from surefire offensive juggernauts like the Los Angeles Angels, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Detroit Tigers!

Funny thing about that though, it's May 24th and Adam Dunn would be a viable MVP candidate if not for the fact that the man hitting behind him is somehow having an even better season. So where do they actually stand in comparison to their opposing lineup brethren?

For this exercise, I chose to use the players who have batted in the three and four holes the most for each team so far this season (except Tampa, on account of Evan Longoria's injury mucking up the counting stats). It's not perfect, but it's good enough. But on to the table!

Team	AB	H	HR	R	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Rangers	317	109	27	58	77	.343	.393	.653	1.046
White Sox	299	93	23	49	58	.311	.427	.605	1.032
Twins	290	84	9	43	46	.290	.410	.479	.889
Orioles	360	103	22	56	53	.286	.352	.531	.883
Indians	278	77	11	37	30	.277	.398	.475	.873
Blue Jays	336	84	26	54	66	.250	.345	.524	.869
Red Sox	343	100	13	53	52	.292	.364	.493	.857
Tigers	338	100	15	46	59	.296	.365	.476	.841
Yankees	332	96	12	50	36	.289	.366	.461	.827
A's	275	72	16	38	45	.262	.334	.491	.825
Rays	296	72	14	47	45	.243	.378	.446	.824
Royals	329	81	14	35	53	.246	.312	.423	.744
Angels	300	73	7	28	31	.243	.293	.357	.650
Mariners	345	86	6	33	31	.249	.290	.351	.641

Second best in the league. Second. Freaking. Best. If you wanted to give someone an incredibly simple and slightly accurate representation of how our offense is getting it done despite the numerous black holes in the lineup, you could point to this table. There are more or less three tiers in the AL right now: us and the Rangers, the middle of the pack, and then the Angels and the Mariners.

A few observations not about us:

• Josh Hamilton is a terrifying man this year. He's like a Dunn/Konerko hybrid that plays outfield.
• Did you expect the Twins to be up so high? Me neither. OBP is a mutha.
• The Orioles leading the AL East is starting to make some more sense.
• The Tigers dream team of Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder has been adequate so far, but .841 is only good for middle of the pack this year.
• Seeing the Angels between the Royals and the Mariners makes me smile malevolent smiles.

But yeah, our boys are in second with a good shot at first and the third place pair sitting well behind without the power to catch up. And it hasn't even gotten hot out yet.