As the calendar flipped from April to May, two 29-year-old first basemen in America's Heartland were off to very different starts. In Chicago, minor-league veteran Bryan LaHair was the feel-good story of the season's first month, hitting .390/.471/.780 for the otherwise-moribund Cubs. A few hundred miles to the east, Casey Kotchman and the Indians were the subject of plenty of "I told you so"s when, to the surprise of few, Kotchman failed to sustain his surprising 2011 production, carrying a .149/.240/.254 slash line into May.
Since May 1, however, LaHair and Kotchman have provided eerily similar production:
| AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | |
| Kotchman | .264 | .319 | .409 | 727 |
| LaHair | .245 | .319 | .413 | 732 |
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