Strikeout Spring

Baseball season is here. However, you can't tell it by the weather.

Credit; MLB.com

As of Sunday, April 22, there had been 26 major league baseball games postponed due to weather. That is the most postponements in April since records were first kept on cancellations beginning in 1986.

Since then, both Baltimore and Pittsburgh have postponed games bringing the total to 28.

The rainy and cold weather seems to be particularly challenging for hitters.

I can relate. Playing baseball in high school on a cold March day there was nothing worse that making poor contact with a bat in your hands. It felt like you were being electrocuted with the "stinger" that resulted.

Perhaps that is why, for the first time in almost 150 years of major league baseball, it appears there will be a full month where there are more strikeouts than hits.

Buster Olney reports that Elias Sports Bureau  has calculated that going into the games of April 23, there had been 5,562 strikeouts but only 5,174 hits this year.

This continues a trend because in each of the  last ten years major league baseball has set the record for most strikeouts in a season.

Last year the average team struck out 8 times per games.

To put that in context, the 1927 Yankees struck out an average of just 3 times per games.

The average for the major leagues did not get above 4 until 1952. It hit ( pun clearly intended)  5 in 1959, 6 in 1994 and 7 in 2010.

I guess it should not be surprising that the World Series Champion Houston Astros had the lowest team strikeout average per game last year---6.76.  Even more impressive was they dropped from 8.96 to 6.76 strikeouts per game between 2016 and 2017.

Credit: TeamRankings.com

At the same time, the Astros also led major league baseball in average hits per game.

Credit: TeamRankings.com

I guess it just goes to show you there is something to just getting your bat on the ball in order to play winning baseball. It is just as true today as it was when my highs school coach was telling me that over 50 years ago.

It is not easy to hit a baseball coming at you at 95 mph. However, it is a lot easier to do it when it is 85 degrees than when it is 45 degrees.

Bring on summer. The batters need it.