Last season started out slow in scoring, too, though the trend didn't show up in the first few days. Eventually, the majors batted .268/.336/.422 for all of 2007, and averaged about nine and a half runs a game. Pretty typical for the past decade-plus since 1993, maybe a tad lower.

So far this season, on a ridiculously tiny sample, the majors are hitting .247/.321/.393. Yep, hitting in clutch situations is down compared to the full 2007 season, but that's because hitting is down across the board...a drop of more than forty OPS points.

But we're talking about a handful of games. Let's check back at the end of April for a much more credible view.

Funny thing is that steroid testing since 2004 has produced little change in run-scoring. So I doubt that the drop in ofense this season has anything to do with it. My guess is that boring old excuse, tiny sample size. Spring trainng wasn't particularly low-scoring at all.

Let's see what happens after a much larger sample of games.

It's the weather. I dunno if you live in CA or something, but in the rest of the country the weather has been cold and wet and generally miserable, which tends to favor pitchers.