The MLB Team With the Best Record in the First Half of the 2022 Regular Season Has Been Exposed in the Playoffs
October 23, 2022
The New York Yankees compiled a 58-43 won-loss record in the first half of the 2022 regular baseball season but went 41-40 the rest of the way. That drop-off was mere prologue to the dramatic erosion of offensive productivity through eight post-season games. Although sporting the second highest average runs-per-game during the regular season, the Yankees’ batting average of 0.241 had been only middle of the pack. In the five-game divisional series against the Cleveland Guardians, the Yankees prevailed but road the interstate with a batting average of only 0.182. Against the Houston Astros so far, the batting average through three losses including Saturday’s shutout worsened considerably to 0.128, giving a combined post-season average through the eight games of 0.160.
Tip one’s hat to Houston pitching. Such had sported a second-best 2.89 earned run average (ERA) during the regular season, that is, giving up only that many runs scored without benefit of fielding errors for every nine innings pitched. Only the Los Angeles Dodger pitching staff had been more efficient in preventing runs. Against the Seattle Mariners in the 3-game sweep of the divisional playoffs, Houston’s ERA was lower still at 2.25, but against the Yankee’s in three games of the American League Championship series, it fell to a near perfect 0.67, allowing on average just two-thirds of an unblemished run per nine innings.
By comparison, in 4-0 World Series losses sustained by the Yankees in 1963 and 1976, Dodger pitching with two future Hall of Famers on the staff had recorded an ERA of 1.00, and Cincinnati posted an ERA of 2.00 thirteen years later. The Yanks had batted 0.171 against a pitching staff featuring Koufax and Drysdale with 9.25 strikeouts per game in 1963 and a batting average of only 0.222 with 4.0 strikeouts per game versus the Cinc’y Reds in 1976. In this year’s post-season, Yankee batters have struck out 10.8 times per game against Cleveland and 13.7 times per game against Houston, meaning that over half the Yankee outs against Houston have been made without the ball being put in play.
Arron Judge, who was responsible for a disproportionate share of the Yankee offense in the regular season, has been slumping this post-season. His 0.311 batting average in the regular season has contrasted with averages of 0.200 in the 5-game ALDS against Cleveland and just 0.083 in the three ALCS games versus Houston. In a total of 43 post-season games going back to his rookie year in 2017, Judge has compiled a batting average of 0.216. Excluding the contributions of Judge and other key players no longer available, the Yankee batting average in the 2022 regular season would have been 0.227, which would have ranked below 27 of the other 29 teams in the league, the exceptions being the Pittsburgh Pirates and Oakland A’s. In that light, it’s less surprising to see why the stellar first half of the season gave way to a mediocre second half and deepening struggles in the playoffs.
Copyright 2022, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: MLB Playoffs
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