Every Monday Baseball Musings compares the offense of current season to the previous season through the same number of full weeks. After four full weeks, offense is down from 9.19 runs per game in 2023 to 8.82 runs per game in 2024. (Games played are exactly the same at 425.) A big part of that offensive drop comes from home runs, down 2.26 per game to 2.04 per game. The other two true outcomes dropped as well. Walks went from 6.67 per game down to 6.60 per game, while strikeouts dropped from 17.42 per game to 16.97 per game.

The game produced more balls in play! Defense appears to have risen to the extra work, as other hits dropped from 14.35 per game to 14.20 per game. I suspect fans are happy with this. They get to see everyone on the field moving more, and that’s just fine.

While having lots of elite pitchers out with injuries may have contributed to the drop in strikeouts, it doesn’t seem to have led to more scoring.

Week four produced 8.56 runs per game. Home runs last week were up compared to the season average, coming in at 2.26 per game, but walks were down to 5.86 to compensate a bit. You can follow the weekly scoring since 2015 here.