The inefficiency of singles
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The inefficiency of singles
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
We're still playing around with the format here at Live Cheese, but the concept remains the same: a running log of real-time, or almost real-time, thoughts on today's series-finale against the Mets.
First up, the difficulty in manufacturing runs while relying primarily on singles. During yesterday's game, we looked at the Phillies' walk rate, which has been in steady decline over the past four years as players like Pat Burrell and Jayson Werth and even Raul Ibanez have moved out of the line-up. Out of the nine players in today's line-up, only Carlos Ruiz and Shane Victorino have a career walk rate that is better than league average (and Victorino's is only a hair above the league average).
The problem is that most major league batters have a 25 to 30 percent chance of hitting a single in an at-bat (in other words, most batters hit between .250 and .300). In order to score runs without extra base hits, a team must get a string of batters to defy heavy odds in the same inning. We saw this in the Phillies' first two offensive innings today. In the first inning, the first three batters all reached base by way of singles. But the Phillies ended up scoring just one run, a Jimmy Rollins single that drove in Juan Pierre from third. Hunter Pence grounded into a force-out that eliminated the lead runner. Ty Wigginton lined out ot the short stop, which did not advance any runners. And after Laynce Nix walked, Carlos Ruiz grounded out to first base.
In the second inning, Cole Hamels and Juan Pierre hit one-out singles, but neither player scored as Shane Victorino grounded into a force-out and Jimmy Rollins grounded out.
Through three innings, the Phillies have produced seven baserunners and one run.
*The odds I gave at the start of this post are general in nature. If you go deeper into the numbers, you'll find that the average ball that is put into play has about a 30 percent chance of landing for a hit. Balls that are put into play on the ground are more likely to result in outs. Generally speaking, the faster a ball travels from point A to point B, the better chance it has at falling in for a hit. This is all pretty intuitive stuff. A team that has a bunch of hitters who do not regularly hit the ball hard is going to have difficulty stringing enough hits together to score runs.
I have it on good authority that when the mothers of Dwyane Wade and Laynce Nix were expecting them, their book club was reading "Creative Ways to Misspell Your Baby's Name Using the Letter Y."— Dave Clemens- is this utley's fault for not being honest about his knees? hamels talks to himself...if i was a pitcher waiting for a payday, i'd walk out on this team.
— oz - Well, this played out exactly as predicted ...
They call this The Lancety Nixinton Effect.— s - Sorry, the premise here is just too strange. Bemouning the low walk rate (a walk gets you on base) while also bemoaning the hitting of singles (which get you on base). Rollins, Pence, Victorino etc are more than capable of extra base hits. They don't mean anything if no one is on. If Hamels gets on by a single, and Pierre singles, and there's less than two outs, I like the chances of getting a run home, even if it didn't work out today. So I guess we all really in fact like playing for the three run homer?— KvK
- Nothing wrong with singles, you just want to avoid making outs and if you have to make an out make it productive. What hurts the current Phillies is that with banjo hitters like Polanco and Pierre and even Rollins so far, outfielders can play so shallow that runners can only go station to station on hits and many of Polanco and Pierres soft bloopers get caught. You have to be able to make them play you honest like Orr did today.— jtj10
- So far our power guys or the players that can hit a HR now and then (Rollins, Victorino, Pence, Thome, Wigginton, Mayberry, Nix and Ruiz) have combined for as many HR (4) as Omar Infante. But that's no a big problem if you can put a few hits together with RISP and play fundamentally sound baseball. The 1982 Cards won the WS hitting less than 70 HR in the regular season.— EL Zorro
- Love your stuff normally Cheese but this article was done when, when you were watching a good tv show? Please bring back the inciteful, analytical (sorry if my spelling is off) stuff you usually run out to us. While I'm at it why did they fill the bench with the same type player yet again.this year Big, long ball hitters who strike out a ton.
— Trot
