CLUTCH FAILURE
Offense ranks near bottom of majors hitting with runners in scoring position
LOS ANGELES – Much has been made this season about the Milwaukee Brewers’ reliance on home runs to score.
It’s an indisputable trend because the Brewers seldom win without the long ball. Entering their series opener Friday night in Los Angeles against the runaway Dodgers, they had won just 11 games without hitting a home run.
The Brewers had scored 285 of their 589 total runs by hitting homers, a 48.4% rate that ranked in the top five in the major leagues. By comparison, the first-place Houston Astros, who led the majors with 712 runs, were at 43.2% in home-run reliance to score.
The Brewers would not have to depend so heavily on home runs to score if they were better at hitting in the clutch. Entering the Dodgers series, they were batting .235 with runners in scoring position, ranking 26th among the 30 big-league clubs. The MLB average was .260.
There has been much debate over the years about the importance of hitting with runners in scoring position. Some consider it an irrelevant statistic individually because a hitter can’t control whether runners are in scoring position when he comes to the plate.
But look at the teams doing well this season in the RISP department. Colorado, tied for third in the majors with 657 runs scored, is batting a remarkable .301 as a club in those situations. Washington has a .293 average with RISP, and Boston checks in at .279.
Notice a trend among those clubs? Each is currently holding a playoff position, be it first place in their division or a wild-card spot. Only Baltimore (.298) is having a losing season among the clubs doing the best with RISP.
But what about the Dodgers, who already had reached the 90-victory mark in what has been a historic season? They were batting .261 with RISP, ranking 14th among the 30 clubs. Obviously, they are doing quite well without tearing it up in that department, mostly because of their excellence in run prevention.
Compare that to the last-place San Francisco Giants, who were 25 games under .500 and nearly 40 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West. The Giants are batting .273 with RISP, ranking sixth in the majors, yet have scored only 520 runs, third from the bottom among the 30
clubs.
“It’s certainly an important stat to tell you who is going to win (a particular game),” Brewers manager Craig Counsell. “Every night, the team that hits better with runners in scoring position probably wins. That’s what happens.
“Identifying which hitters are better at hitting with runners in scoring position than others is a little harder to do. I think the better hitters are better at it.”
Brewers cleanup hitter Travis Shaw leads the club with 82 runs batted in, so it’s no surprise that he is among the best on the team with RISP, batting .306 with a 1.052 ERA. But the hitter who bats ahead of him, Ryan Braun, has been woeful in that category, hitting .175 with a .622 OPS.
But, because of ongoing calf issues, Braun has played in only 72 games, compared to 113 for Shaw. Had he played in a majority of the games he missed, would Braun have boosted his RISP numbers significantly? He only has 67 plate appearances in those situations, so perhaps so.
To show how individual RISP numbers can vary from year to year, Braun was the Brewers’ best hitter in that department in 2016, batting .336 with a 1.088 OPS in 150 plate appearances.
“It’s (less than) 100 atbats this year,” Counsell said. “But, over the course of Ryan’s career, I think he’s been pretty good.”
Catcher Manny Piña has been a reliable hitter in the clutch for the Brewers, batting .317 with RISP, including a .805 OPS. Rightfielder Domingo Santana also has come through those situations, batting .302 with a .953 OPS.
Eric Thames, who has seen some action in the leadoff spot recently but batted second most of the season, is having a rough year with RISP. Thames is batting .155 with a .622 OPS in those situations.
The Brewers have been even worse hitting with RISP and two outs. They are batting .208 in those situations, ranking 27th in the majors. The MLB average in that department is .238.
In the Brewers’ justcompleted three-game series in San Francisco, a notoriously difficult venue to hit home runs, they managed just one while losing two of three games. With little clutch hitting, they scored a total of six runs.
One thing is certain. As the Brewers’ home-run rate dropped after the allstar break, from 1.52 per game to 1.27, it became more difficult to score runs. They averaged 4.96 runs per game in the first half, compared to 3.73 after the break.
The result has been a 16-21 record (.432) in the second half, forcing the Brewers to play catch up in both the NL Central and wild-card races.