Every Monday Baseball Musings compares the offense of the current season to the previous season through the same number of full weeks. Through 14 weeks, MLB games produced 8.77 runs per game compared to 9.14 runs per game in 2023. The gap appears to be narrowing just a bit. The home run difference is down to 0.17 per game, 2.15 this year compared to 2.32 in 2023. Walks remain down, now 0.3 per game fewer than in 2023, and strikeouts remain down, about 0.5 per game. Unfortunately, more balls in play did not lead to more BABIP hits (singles, doubles, triples) as those are down 0.3 per game. It does seem those extra balls in play may be preventing the scoring drop from being worse. Batted balls that don’t get recorded as hits can produce more positive outcomes than strikeouts.

Week fourteen was a good week for scoring, averaging 9.37 runs per game, the second best full week of the season. Home runs, walks, and strikeouts were all up, as well as all hits. The three true outcome offense can be an efficient one, which is why it is so tough to reduce.