Offense Archives

So far, the Cardinals/Royals game stands out as the high scoring contest of the day. St. Louis took that game by a score of 9-6, beating out the battle of Ohio by one run. However, in the first fourteen games finished today, the teams scored just 94 runs, or 6.7 per game. Six game finished with five runs or less total, and the Rangers lead the Phillies 3-1 in the eighth. We'll see if the Chicago teams can bring the average up.

Update: The Rangers win 5-1 bringing the total for the day to 100 runs and leaving the average at 6.7. Ian Kinsler went 3 for 4 today with a triple. At age 26, he's coming into his own as a player. He currently sports a .377 OBA and a .534 slugging percentage.

The White Sox just took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth on a Carlos Quentin home run. He came into the game with his power waning in June (.435 slugging percentage this month through the 28th), but that home run ties him with Josh Hamilton for the AL lead in home runs.

Update: The White Sox sweep the Cubs at US Cellular Field, taking the last game 5-1. That's 106 runs in 16 games, or 6.6 runs per game today.

Correction: Sorry, there were 15 games played yesterday, not 16. That makes 7.1 runs per game.

Charlie Manuel shook up the Phillies lineup Wednesday night to try to break a slump that saw Philadelphia score just eleven runs in a six-game losing streak. Utley and Burrell moved up, Rollins and Howard moved down, and the offense showed a little life. Chase went four for four, missing the cycle by a homer. However, he neither scored nor drove in a run. Coste knocked in two as the Phillies went on to a 4-0 win over the Athletics.

Kyle Kendrick contributed more, as he pitched eight shutout innings. It was easily his best outing of the season, as he walked just one batter and struck out four. We'll see if Manuel sticks with this lineup, or if it was just a shock to wake up the team.

Cito Gaston won his first game in his new stint as Blue Jays manager as Toronto defeated Pittsburgh 8-5. The table setters reached base six times, and the heart of the order drove in five runs. Rios and Overbay each hit a double, and number six hitter Scott Rolen homered. It's only the second time in their last 12 games that the Blue Jays scored more than four runs.

Chico Harlan looks at the recent poor performance of the Washington Nationals offense. Of course, the problem is bigger than two shutouts in a row. The Nationals have the lowest OPS in the National League. Imagine a team made up of hitters like Casey Blake and Gary Matthews, Jr., and you have the Nats.

The Blue Jays are pounding the Athletics this afternoon, off to a 10-0 lead in the sixth inning. It the first time the Jays reached double digits in runs in a game since April 15th when they scored eleven against Baltimore. Six of the starters collected multi-hit games so far.

Litsch is making another good start, walking just one through 5 2/3 innings, and keeping the ball in the park.

Mark Buehrle came into the game against the Indians having allowed a .318 batting average on the season. The Indians, however, could manage just two hits against the lefty. They lose 3-1, wasting an excellent effort by Laffey. With only one run tonight, the Indians fall below 4.0 runs per game for 2008. With six straight losses and eight straight Chicago wins, Cleveland is now 4 1/2 games back in the AL Central. You also have to wonder if Wedge is moving onto the managerial hot seat with Yost and Randolph.

Correction: I figured the runs per game off the pitching file, which means I was looking at the other league. That caused me to report the runs backward. The table above is fixed now. I've rewritten the post to reflect this.

The scoring pattern did not hold over the weekend, with the American League teams outscoring the National League teams.

League	Runs per Game
American	4.7
National	4.5

The American League won the weekend 22-19. There were fifteen one-run games this weekend, and the AL won those as well 8-7.

The National League scored more with designated hitters, although the AL difference remains larger. Also, this really isn't a good comparison until all teams have played with and without the extra hitter:

Interleague Play, 2008

Runs Per Game	Pitcher Bats	DH Bats
American League	4.13	5.59
National League	4.38	4.65

So the NL took their home series 13-11, while the AL won at home 11-6, in line with the run differences.

Take a look at the latest hit streaks. Of the top eleven streaks, five hitters are hitting .500 or better during the streak. Only Hunter Pence is hitting under .400. Usually, when I look at this list, you see a couple of people with weak streaks; one hit a game, a batting average under .300. This group is pounding the ball, however.

I was just looking at runs per game in interleague games with and without the designated hitter, and found this amazing number:

History of Interleague Play

Runs per Game	Pitcher Batting	DH Batting
American League	4.67	5.17
National League	4.73	4.72

So the designated hitter is worth 1/2 run to the American League, but the NL teams do better with a pitcher! That's how poor a bench the NL has carried over the first eleven years of interleague play.

With fourteen interleague games today we'll get a test of the relative strength of the two leagues. Here's how offenses look through intraleague play on Thursday:

2008	AL	NL
Runs per Game	4.34	4.63
Batting Average	.258	.260
On-Base Average	.328	.334
Slugging Percentage	.392	.409

My theory is that the NL is better because they developed better, younger batters. Some in the comments here have suggested the NL is better because the AL owns better pitchers. Others suggested the AL recently incorporated more glove men into their lineup. How can we tell?

The situation is of course, complicated. All of these factors might be true. If AL pitchers are better than NL pitchers, and there really is no difference in batters, then we should see AL scoring rise and NL scoring fall, adjusting for the DH (or lack thereof). If NL batters are truly better than AL batters, then we should see AL runs allowed s rise, and NL allowed fall on a per game basis.

There's also the possibility that AL pitchers are better than NL pitchers, and AL batters are worse than NL batters. This is a tough case, because we might not see any change here at all as things even out.

The possibility exists of AL pitchers and batters being better than NL pitchers and batters. In that case, the AL pitchers should be greatly superior, since they are holding better batters to fewer runs. In that case, we should see AL scoring go up and NL scoring go down. That would be a very strange result.

This weekend won't be enough to tell, since teams might be pitted against an opponent that is good at neutralizing the other's strength. That won't stop us from at least taking a look at how things turned out on Monday.

The six, seven and eight slots for the Pirates haven't produced much this season. Coming into today, they produced .240, .230 and .212 batting averages, with OPS of .734, .663 and .541 respectively. Today, however, they keyed the Pirates win. The three batters in the slot combined to go 8 for 13 with two walks and a double. They made all those times on base count as they scored eight of the Pirates eleven runs. They take two out of three from St. Louis are find themselves tied with the Brewers for fourth in the NL Central.

Earlier today I linked to a post at Sabernomics looking at temperatures in April to see if they contributed to the fall off in home runs. My good friends at STATS, Inc. were able to supply me with the actual game time average temperatures for the same period. Here's the outdoor stadiums only:

Season	Avg. Outdoor Temp
1997	59
1998	61
1999	61
2000	63
2001	63
2002	62
2003	61
2004	64
2005	63
2006	64
2007	60
2008	62

While the average US temperature in April was lower than in 2007, at baseball games it was higher. However, this data does show a big falloff over the last two Aprils.

My latest column at SportingNews.com examines the different paths the Marlins and Athletics followed to generate runs.

Sabernomics compares the home run rate in April over the last decade to the temperature in April. The last two season, home runs are down and so is the temperature. The temperature he uses, however, is mean US temperature. I'd like to see someone use actual game time temperature to do the same study.

William Burke and Joe Sheehan try to tackle the puzzling question of why the AL is scoring less than the NL, in what appears to be an article available to everyone. My SportingNews.com column looked at this last week, with Burke and Sheehan commenting:

I'm not entirely convinced, but he lays out an interesting case.

These two researchers dig deep into the number and present evidence that fewer fly balls are leaving the park in the AL this year, leading to a large reduction in slugging percentage. However, I'm not convinced as to their why:

I think there may be some selection effects happening here. I've written about this when it comes to playoff baseball. Playoff games are generally lower scoring than regular-season games. However, part of the reason for that is that managers play as if they will be lower scoring, using more one-run strategies than they normally would and emphasizing defense to a greater extent. It becomes, if not a self-fulfilling prophecy, one that gets helped along.

Over the last year or so, we've heard a lot about teams getting away from the style of baseball played during the peak of the high-offense era, and trying to play better defense. Personnel decisions along the lines of playing Tony Pena Jr. or Asdrubal Cabrera add up, and they start to impact the league's statistics. Teams have been choosing defense over offense, and that is probably the biggest reason for the drop in offense in the AL: personnel selection. Managers and GMs are putting lesser hitters on the field in an effort to prevent runs, and they're getting just that result--for themselves and the opposition.

The only place I can see where a team truly traded slugging for defense was at shortstop in Baltimore. Asdrubal Cabrera sparked the Indians offensively last season. The Royals didn't exactly have offensive power houses at shortstop before Pena. Torii Hunter stayed in the AL. The Tigers moved their great defensive third baseman to the bench for more offense. The Yankees play Giambi at first to improve their outfield defense, but they still keep all those hitters in the game. Maybe if you look over a few season it's there, but I don't see it. I notice a lot of old Firstbase/DH types not producing.

A rare batting out of order took place in the Reds/Mets game today:

Backup catcher David Ross came to the plate to lead off the inning and lined out. But the batter in the No. 8 spot should have been outfielder Corey Patterson, with Ross hitting ninth after an earlier double switch.

Mets manager Willie Randolph came out to inform the umpiring crew of the mix-up. Patterson was charged with the out, which officially counts as a putout by the catcher, and Ross came up again. This time, he singled.

Reds manager Dusty Baker said the batting order was correct on the dugout board and on his scorecard.

"The guys hit out of order, and it's my job to catch that," Baker said. "So I take full responsibility."

When I wrote the game scoring code for STATS, coding this took a bit of doing. For example, Randolph might have decided he didn't want Ross batting again, and Patterson would be skipped. So I had to code in a skip batter event, which given the right situation, a scorer might have to skip everyone in the lineup to get back to the proper batting slot.

Jeff Keppinger keeps hitting. He's two for two today to give him hits in seven straight at bats. Six were singles, but he picked up a triple this afternoon. The Reds trail the Mets 6-3 in the bottom of the sixth.

It's been an incredibly low scoring night. The Tigers have scored six runs against the Yankees, but no other team scored more than three so far. Of the early games, two are 1-0 and one in 0-0. We'll see how the late ones work out.

My latest column at SportingNews.com examines why the National League is outscoring the American League so far this season. I really believe this is the first indication of a seismic shift in the quality of the leagues. It happened twice before. The NL was way ahead of the AL in signing black ballplayers after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, and that led to the NL dominating the All-Star game from the 1950s through the early 1980s. Then, the AL was quicker to harvest the talent coming out of Latin America, and AL became the dominant league, taking over the All Star game from the late 1980s through last season. It now appears that the NL discovered that young talent is better talent, and I suspect they will once again return to being the dominant league.

Earlier in the day, Devon Young emailed:

In day games, the Pirates are scoring 5.7 rpg (40 runs in 7 games) ~ but at night, they're averaging 3.9 rpg. That's a huge split.

It's a small sample size, but then the Pirates score seven runs in the second inning. Five were unearned, but Perez was wild, walking five in the game and didn't get out of the second inning. The Pirates are making the seven runs hold up as they still lead 7-0 in the top of the fourth.

FanGraphs presents some very cool numbers on batter plate discipline. I'm not surprised to see Frank Thomas at the top of the leader board for lowest percentage of swings at balls outside the zone, nor am I surprised to see Vlad Guerrero with the second highest percentage in that category. There are lots of ways to be successful in baseball.

With the Tigers scoring thirty seven runs in their last three games, they're now averaging 5.2 runs per game. That's still less than I expected, but a few more games like this and they'll be close to six per game. They defeat Texas 8-2.

Teams are walking Albert Pujols at every opportunity, and it's causing Albert to change his approach at the plate for the worse:

After leading in the count 3-0 against Guillermo Mota, Pujols took a strike, then swung at two low pitches to strike out for only the seventh time this season. "I felt I didn't want to walk, and I took myself out of the strike zone to swing at that pitch," Pujols said. "The 3-0 pitch was a little low. But I tried to push too much. I should've taken my walk. It's something you learn. You press. It's the way the game goes."

The game increasingly steps around Pujols. He has never walked 100 times in a season but now finds himself on pace for 154.

Through Monday, Pujols' six intentional walks led the major leagues. Only Cincinnati Reds left fielder Adam Dunn had more walks overall (22).

The number was partly responsible for Pujols, as of Monday, being the game's on-base king with a .500 on-base percentage, but it also fed his frustration about too few pitches to hit with runners on base.

More than half his walks (11) have come in 26 plate appearances with runners in scoring position.

Albert needs to take the Bonds approach. The walks are good, the walks help his team. There will be times when the opposition can't walk him, and then he needs to wait for his pitch. That's what made him such a great hitter this decade. There's no reason to change just because teams are pitching around him. The more he gets on base, the more the Cardinals score.

We knew the Tigers offense was good, but after yesterday's shutout, the Tigers were losing 5-0 going to the bottom of the sixth. Then they started hitting. The scored four in the sixth, but gave them back in the top of the seventh. They scored one more in the seventh, then hit the Twins bullpen for six in the eighth. Sheffield, Ordonez, Cabrera and Guillen are a combined 10 for 17 tonight, each with at least two hits. They lead 11-9 in the top of the ninth. This could be the spark the offense needed. They've increased their runs scored by 33% tonight.

Update: Jones puts two runners on base but holds on for the save. A huge win for the Tigers, and a tough day for the Twins pitching staff which was performing very well up to this point.

The Tigers hit into five ground ball double plays tonight, nearly doubling their total for the season. They're tied with the Twins for most GDP in the majors this season.

The Tigers really suffered from Murphy's law in this game. Verland pitched badly, and his defense didn't help him as five of the nine runs he allowed were unearned.

The White Sox, on the other hand, received good pitching, and showed selectivity at the plate as they drew six walks to go with their twelve hits. The Tiger fans were booing tonight, and as the game progressed their home team just gave them more reasons to keep the cat calls coming. They ended the game appropriately, hitting into a double play with the bases loaded.

It's early, but runs are down from last season. Through three days of the season (it really starts on Monday):

Offense	2007	2008
Games	37	38
Runs	340	309
Runs/Game	9.2	8.1
Home Runs	65	74
HR/Game	1.76	1.95

More home runs, but fewer men on base. There's been about one fewer hit+walk+HBP per game this season, leading to a drop in OBA from .330 to .323. Would that be enough to cause a one-run drop in scoring? What's really happened is that players aren't delivering with runners in scoring position. At this time last year, the majors were hitting .266/.355/.369 (BA/OBA/Slug) with runners in scoring position. This year, .247/.350/.381. That's about a 20 point drop in batting average in a situation where batting average does a lot of good. The power is up, but the hits are less frequent. The low scoring so far is a failure of timing.

The Giants haven't scored in 15 innings, and the Astros haven't scored in 14. I know a some point they'll score runs, but you have to start wondering when.

Update: Bourn draws a walk with the bases loaded, and the Astros break their streak in the sixth inning. They trail San Diego 2-1 with the bases still loaded.

The Mets are trying to get Jose Reyes out of the habits he picked up at the end of last season. That leads to this being a bad thing:

Jose Reyes swore he was just trying to hit a line drive up the middle, or even to the opposite field, as instructed. Yet with a flick of his wrists he hit a screaming shot that crashed high off the 20-foot fence in center field, 408 feet from the plate.

The ball was hit so hard, in fact, off Joe Smith in an intrasquad game yesterday, that catcher Robinson Cancel, who was on first base, was nearly thrown out at the plate, while Reyes cruised into third with a triple.

Afterward, Reyes was practically apologizing for the shot, knowing the Mets are trying to resurrect his game after last season's killer slump by urging him to think small and slow his body down, at least in the batter's box.

"I don't know how I hit it that hard," Reyes said sheepishly. "In my mind I'm trying to slow down my body a little bit, hit the ball the other way and use my speed. It was a fastball and I just use my hands."

Such is the dilemma for the Mets this spring: Harnessing Reyes' explosive ability in an attempt to avoid the kind of meltdown that crippled the team last September, is tricky business, indeed.

I've seen something similar happen to Soriano. In his last year with the Yankees he hit a couple of home runs on low, outside pitches, then chased that pitch for the rest of the year.

My latest column at SportingNews.com examines if the moves made by the Tigers are enough to move them ahead of the Yankees offensively.

The Hardball Times looks at position bias as a major explanation for the advantage of left-handed batters over right-handed batters.

So far four teams have scored at least thirteen runs today. The Rangers defeated the Tigers this afternoon 13-6, the Red Sox are up 16-9 on the Devil Rays, Florida took Washington 13-8 and the Braves defeated the Mets 13-5. That makes the Angels offense look week as they only managed ten runs against the Orioles!

In the history of the Day by Day Database (back to 1957), there was a day with six thirteen-runs games, June 9, 1999. Four such contests tie for second in that time period. It also happened earlier this season on July 29, 2007.

I thought ESPN missed a great chance at analysis in the top of the fifth inning in tonight's Indians-Angels game. Sizemore leads off the inning, pulling a double to right field, not down the line, but to the left of the rightfielder. Cabrera follows up with a double he pulls into the gap deep in right-center. The interesting thing to me is that K-Zone showed both pitches away from the batter. Sizemore's was about 3/4 to the outside edge of the plate, and Cabrera made contact with the ball over the outside edge of the plate. I always hear announcers say how you should go with pitches away, but here were two cases when pulling the ball more outside than inside resulted in long hits. I'd love to hear Joe's explanation for that.

As mentioned in the previous post, the Padres have the highest run differential in the National League, +67. That struck me as a very low number for this far into the season, and indeed it is. The following table lists the best run difference in the National League from 1962 to the present, the era of the 162 game schedule.

Season	MaxDiff
2007	67
1982	81
1980	89
1981	94
1964	94
1989	99
2006	103
1984	104
1983	106
1969	109
1992	113
1966	118
1963	119
1973	120
1965	121
1968	122
1995	124
1987	125
1996	125
1970	127
1994	131
1979	132
1991	136
1967	138
2001	141
1978	154
1990	162
2002	167
2003	167
2005	171
1988	171
1985	175
2000	178
1972	179
1977	187
1962	188
1971	189
2004	196
1986	205
1993	208
1997	210
1976	224
1999	232
1974	237
1998	254
1975	254

The Padres are on a pace for a +82 run difference this season, which would just beat out 1982. Even strike years higher than 2007. And this is the problem with parity. It's nice to have lots of teams involved in a playoff race, but it would also be nice to have some good teams as well. There's no inspiring team in the National League this season, no one that's going to get a chapter in the history books. There are just teams that can win on any given day, or just as easily lose.

The good news for an owner who really wants to win is that it should be too difficult. If you're willing to do what the Marlins did in 1997, and spend money on quality free agents, dominating the NL in 2008 should be a piece of cake. The teams just aren't that good.

The Yankees send ten men to the plate in the second inning, collecting a walk and six hits, the last a home run off the bat of Alex Rodriguez. That gives Alex 112 RBI and 105 runs scored in 114 games played. He going to need a very good finish to get both more runs and RBI than games played. They score seven times in inning and lead Cleveland 7-1 in the second. With Mussina on the mound, however, one wonders if that lead is safe.

The Dodgers and Padres each lost this afternoon, scoring one and three runs respectively. That's been pretty much the problem during Arizona's surge. Since 7/21, the Diamondbacks are scoring 5.2 runs per game. The Padres are 1/2 run back at 4.7, and the Dodgers are bringing up the back of the pack at 3.4. That's worst in the NL over that time. A win tonight opens up Arizona's lead in the division to four games over the Padres and six games over the Dodgers.

The Phillies cruised to an easy win last night, defeating the Dodgers 15-3. Seven players managed multiple hit games, including pitcher J.D. Durbin who collected three hits. The biggest nights belonged to Shane Victorino and Aaron Rowand, each knocking out five hits in the game.

Ryan Howard hit a pair of two-run home runs. Shane Victorino tied a career high with five hits. Aaron Rowand set a career high with five hits. Chase Utley collected three RBIs. Pat Burrell hit his 200th career homer in the seventh inning.

In the fifty seven year history of the Day by Day Database, it's just the eighteenth time two players on the same team picked up five hits in the same game.

With his two home runs last night, Howard has hit fifteen in his last 155 at bats, about one every ten at bats. That's better than his career average of one every 11.4 at bats.

Photo credt: Jordan Murph/Icon SMI

Despite yesterday's big scores, offense remains down vs. 2006. Through the same number of days:

Category	2006	2007
Games	1290	1283
Runs	12628	12034
Runs per Game	9.79	9.38
Home Runs	2873	2528
HR per Game	2.23	1.97

Major league OBA is down to .332 in 2007 after coming in at .337 in 2006. It's pretty much in line with the decade, however.

The day is not over, but the Twins scored 32 runs on the day so far. In the night cap, they've hit six home runs, three by Morneau. They have the bases loaded with one out in the top of the eighth with a 12-0 lead. They've already scored the most runs in one day in the last 50 years. The St. Louis Cardinals scored 28 on 9/7/1993, the biggest one day total in the 51 seasons covered by the Day by Day Database. The AL record for runs by a team in a double header is 36, but the Twins fail to score in the top of the eighth.

Of top of the great offense, Matt Garza turns in six shutout innings, extending his streak of scoreless innings from his two relief innings earlier this week. He struck out six as well.

Correction: I had forgotten to sort the query result. The Cardinals, not the Braves had the biggest one day total in the last 51 seasons. The Braves, Astros, Orioles and Athletics all had days with 27 runs in that time frame.

Correction: The box score I looked at last night had this wrong. Morneau hit three home runs, Cuddyer one.

All eight position starters in the Cubs lineup today come into the game with an OBA at or above the league average of .328. Only one Nationals player can say that, Dmitri Young.

Update: Zimmerman, however, provides some power as his two-out solo home run puts the Nationals up 1-0 in the bottom of the first.

For Baseball Prospectus subscribers, my latest article is now available. This week I look at how hitters are getting older, and how GMs and managers on average do a good job with older hitters.

The Seattle Times notes the Mariners offensive rise in the AL:

After all, they just spent the past week receiving the equivalent of a collective cortisone shot. Three games each against Tampa Bay and Kansas City have not only soothed a once-hurting offense, but boosted it into a powerhouse with the American League's highest batting average.

Seattle ranks sixth in the American League in runs per game at 4.85, exceeding their runs created projection. That's more in line with their .331 OBA, which is 8th in the AL and their seventh ranked slugging percentage. In a low offensive year, the Mariners are doing okay. Seattle unintentionally adopted the Angels playbook. They aren't walking much, but their not striking out, either. With 210, they have the fewest strikeouts in the AL. They're putting the ball in play a lot, and good things are happening.

Runs are down over .5 per game for May 2007 vs. May 2006, through May 24 (9.67 in 2006 vs. 9.13 in 2007). I checked with my good friends at STATS, Inc. and they tell me that the temperature difference between May 2006 and May 2007 is slight. Last year, the average temperature in May for games was 70.1 degrees Fahrenheit (with or without dome stadiums). This year, it's 69.9 degrees Fahrenheit. That doesn't seem like much of a difference to me. The weather looked like a good reason in April for the decline. It's looking like less of a good reason in May.

Seth Kolloen blasts the Mariners for becoming less selective at the plate, despite the coaching staff trying to turn them around:

OK, so the Mariners aren't patient. So what? Sure, they've got the fewest walks in the major leagues, but they also have the fewest strikeouts. The team batting average is .269! What's the problem?

Here's the problem: Patience isn't just about earning walks, it's about driving up the pitch counts of opposing starters, seeing them off to the showers, and pummeling the squishy belly of every team's pitching staff -- the middle relief.

The Mariners have knocked out a starter before the seventh inning only 11 times this season. That's the worst in the American League -- the Red Sox and Indians have done it 24 times each. Those teams score more runs not necessarily because they have better hitters, but because they are facing less talented pitchers.

I'll just add that if you can lay off balls out of the strike zone, you're more likely to get pitches in the strike zone you can crush. Seth lays the blame at the feet of the GM, since he's the one who acquired this type of player. The whole article is well worth the read.

As of 1:41 PM EDT, there have been 32 half innings played. The eight teams in action have combined for 14 hits and one run.

Offense is 2007 continues to lag behind offense in 2006. Over the last week, the gap started to widen again. Right now, total runs per game is about 0.7 runs lower than through he same point last year. Here's a graph of each individual day over the two seasons (click on graph for a full size view):

As you can see, most of the difference resulted from low scoring early in the season, giving credence to the weather explanation. At the end of April (around Day 27) things start to even out, and 2007 looks a lot like 2006. But lately scoring diverged again. The weather's been nice in the northeast lately, but I know a lot of rain fell on other parts of the country. Unfortunately, I don't have weather data, so I'll leave that to other researchers.

Note, also, that in 2006 up to this point there were twelve days in which the league averaged eleven runs per game or better, and only one this season. In contrast, six games in 2007 fell at or below seven runs per game, while there was just one in 2006.

Also note that early in the season you can pick out the days the #1 starters pitched, and the days the #5 starters pitched. After two weeks, these get jumbled enough that the volatility in runs per game goes down. Which is another reason the recent week of 2007 is interesting, the volatility went back up.

I'm not totally convinced the weather is the only factor at work here. The weather is improving, but runs per game are starting to get worse again. The current blip down is too short a time frame to be meaningful, but it bears watching.

Another example of why strikeouts don't seem to matter that much to an offense.

J.J. Hardy picked up two hits last night, including his eighth home run. That raised his slugging percentage to .610, best when hitting as a shortstop. He's not the only shortstop off to a big power surge to start 2007. Seven major league shortstops are slugging above .500 right now. There are a number of reasons this is remarkable:

• Shortstops are supposed to be known for their defense. Of the seven fielder behind the pitcher, shortstop requires the most defensive skill and the least offensive skill.
• Runs and power are down this year. Offense is down .5 runs per game from the same time last season, and home runs are down .4 per game. Yet, shortstops are thriving.
• This is a whole new crop of shortstops doing well. If you look at these stats through May 5, 2006, you see a number of veterans near the top. The first five on this year's list are not rookies, but they're not who we think of as power hitting shortstops.
• The top five are all in the National League. Last decade, it was the AL that developed the great shortstops. That advantage now switches to the NL.

Whom do you pick on your all-star ballot?

In the discussion about the White Sox hitters this morning, the Cardinals turned out to be the second worst team in batting average when not striking out. They're doing a good job this afternoon of demonstrating why. Through five innings against Albers, they've only struck out twice, but in their other 15 at bats, they've garnered just two hits. The Cardinals trail Houston 9-0 in the top of the sixth. Houston picked up eleven hits in twenty one at bats in which they didn't strike out.

The Dodgers just finished their game with the Diamondbacks, winning 2-1. That completes the afternoon schedule (you had me at hello), and the six game saw a total of 34 runs, 5.67 per game. The weather seems pretty nice right now, and we're still 0.5 runs behind last season.

Sabernomics points to a couple of studies that show hitters peak closer to 29 than 27. That's very interesting. When I first read Bill James and his research that players peaked at 27, it made sense to me. A few years earlier, a crew coach told me that oarsmen peaked at 27. I figured at that point, athletic peak was athletic peak. But it appears Bill's study was biased by the era of ballplayer he chose. Time to readjust my thinking.

The Diamondbacks pitchers are hitting for a higher batting average than the Diamondbacks pinch hitters. Pitchers are 7/40, a .175 BA, while pinch hitters went 6/37, .162. It should be noted that batters in a pinch drew two walks and were hit by a pitch, giving them a better OBA. They've also produced a double versus no extra-base hits for the pitchers. Still, there's not much of a difference there. With Livan Hernandez 3 for 9, you might as well let him bat for himself.

Four of the five NL East teams do a fantastic job of setting the table:

Best 1-2 OBA, NL Teams, 2007

Team	1-2 OBA
Mets	.404
Braves	.393
Marlins	.383
Phillies	.375
Reds	.375

Reyes and Rollins each discovered their inner selectivity this year. Jose's OBA is over 100 points better than his career average, while Rollins is up over 40. All these teams are giving their power hitting hearts plenty of RBI opportunities. NY, Florida and Atlanta are in the top five in the NL in runs per game.

Ken Harrelson said something very interesting while watching Crede face Zumaya. Joel is hitting 100 on the gun, and Crede just takes a pitch down the middle. Hawk says that when someone is throwing that fast, it's good to take a pitch like that all the way, not moving your head. He explained that this makes the pitch look slower; it lets the batter time the fastball. Crede then singled in the tying run.

I've never heard about this approach to a hard thrower before. Does anyone care to comment?

Offense is still down vs. last year, but the gap narrowed a bit over the weekend. Note that MLB is way behind in games played due to all the bad weather:

Offense through first two weeks of the season.

Category	2006	2007
Games	182	169
Runs	1854	1430
R/G	10.2	8.5
Home Runs	452	288
HR/G	2.5	1.7