TOM VERDUCCI...2013 MLB PLAYOFFS...HITS DROPPING TO HISTORIC LOWS

Nobody has ever seen major league baseball played the way it is being played this postseason. A nearly decade-long trend of increased strikeouts in baseball is being taken to the extreme this postseason, when a groundball, nevermind an actual hit, is cause for excitement. The Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, St. Louis Cardinals {the three highest scoring teams in baseball this year} & Los Angeles Dodgers combined to score two runs in two League Championship Games yesterday while striking out 41 times.

Postseason baseball traditionally leans more toward pitching than hitting. The tournament format generally takes back ends of rotations and middle relievers out of play, a surfeit of off days allows a manager to rely on his best arms more often & advanced scouting reports are more detailed & focused. Intelligence favors pitching & defense more than offense. Odd starting times with the sun lower in the sky create poor hitting conditions. Now layer those factors atop what has been happening in baseball over the last decade or so, as average velocity & spin rates by pitchers has increased & as hitters have come to accept strikeouts as no worse than any other form of an out. Strikeout rates increased this year to a record high for the seventh straight year.
You wind up with this formula: more pitchers with swing & miss stuff plus more hitters who don't care about striking out plus the usual postseason schedule factors equals an unprecedented style of baseball. The baseball has never been in play less often than it has this postseason.

Twenty-three games into the postseason, get a whiff at what has happened to baseball this October:

• One out of every three batters that steps to the plate this postseason strikes out or walks...546 of 1,627 batters or 34 % of all plate appearances.
• Saturday was the first day in baseball history with two 1-0 postseason games on the same day.
• Total 1-0 postseason games in the past week: three. Total 1-0 postseason games in the previous 11 years 2002-2012 : three.
• Batting average of all teams this postseason: .231.
• The Dodgers, Cardinals, Red Sox & Tigers combined to bat 1-for-27 with runners in scoring position yesterday .037.
• Postseason games this year are averaging 17.48 strikeouts per game. That's up 16 percent from the regular season average this year {15.1} & up 51 percent from how the game was played just 20 years ago {11.6}.
• The results from the first three LCS games: a .159 batting average, no home runs, seven runs & 65 strikeouts with an average time of game of 3:48. That's an average of one run every 98 minutes.

If you like close, low-scoring games, you're in luck. Thirteen of the 23 games have been decided by one or two runs. But if you like to see the ball put in play & the action of fielders, baserunners & the baseball in motion, you have my condolences. But you cannot deny baseball has been trending in this direction for years & we are closer & closer to asking when the normal ebbs & flows of the game will turn this around, or whether procedures & rules need to be addressed to encourage the ball in play more often.