Take heart, Chicago Cub baseball fans. It seems it wasn’t only the Cubs who were struggling to clear the fences in April. Or scoring runs for that matter.
According to an AP story, the offensive deep freeze that plagued the Cubs throughout last month also was the scourge of major league baseball. Much like the April temperatures, offensive production in home runs, batting average and runs scored plummeted from previous years.
For example, the Elias Sports Bureau reported home run production fell to mid-1990s levels at an average of 1.84 per game. In 2006, the per game average was 2.31. Run production was down (9.86 to 9.08 runs per game) as was the batting average (.265 to .256).
As you might suspect the only beneficiaries of this offensive nosedive were the pitchers. Major league earned run average fell from 4.62 in April 2006 to this year’s level of 4.12.
Coincidentally, the story states that according to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., below-average temperatures were recorded (and felt) in 10 major league cities, including Chicago.
Which only makes Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella twice the genius for the month. The first hint of brilliance came when the team was in the midst of its April slump. Piniella stated unequivocally at the time that the weather was playing a major role in the Cubs struggles.
And me, not being the genius, took issue with it.
For those of you not counting, Piniella’s genius struck again when he moved Alfonso Soriano from center field to his customary position in left. The move has done him good.
Soriano, who was among the major league leaders for the biggest bust of April, summed up his performance honestly and succinctly after going homerless for the first 24 games.
“This is the worst month of my career,†Soriano said, following a 3-2 loss to Pittsburgh earlier this week. “I got injured. No homers. I struggled at home plate.”
But on the bright side, Alfonso, you had plenty of good company, including Ryan Howard, Carlos Delgado and Sammy So…
Oh well, two out of three ain’t bad.
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