Every Monday Baseball Musings compare the offense of the current season to the offense of the previous season through the same number of full weeks. Through seventeen weeks, the 2023 season produced 9.17 runs per game compared to 8.65 runs per game in 2022. The increase in scoring comes from 0.2 more home runs per game, 0.3 more walks per game, and 0.3 more other hits per game. The rise in other hits due to the shift restrictions is somewhat tempered by a rise in strikeouts of 0.5 per game. The fact that batters can do better by putting the ball in play hasn’t stemmed the rise of the three-true outcomes. The game keeps moving in that direction.

That said, week 17 moved the opposite way. The week produced 9.10 runs per game, a little below the season average. Home runs were at 2.4 per game, right on the league average. Walks came in at 6.3 per game, a little below the season average of 6.5 per game. Strikeouts were down also, at 16.9 per game versus a league average of 17.2 per game. Other hits came in high, at 15.1 per game against 14.3 per game for the season. There are lots of ways to produce nine runs a game, and I suspect MLB wants more of the week seventeen style of scoring.