2 outs RISP

[ElJimador]

In his post-game thread at McCovey Chronicles, Grant noted that the Giants' .208 BA w/2 outs, RISP is the lowest in the NL. Which got me wondering who the biggest culprits were (besides Sandoval -- I think everyone's been made aware of his problems in the clutch this year). So here are those splits, just among the current Giants regulars:

Posey .333 (.844 ops)
Schierholtz .286 (.733 ops)
Fontenot .263 (.679 ops)
Ishikawa .250 (.838 ops)
Torres .234 (.719 ops)
Rowand .227 (.619 ops)
Uribe .218 (.684 ops)
Huff .216 (.653 ops)
Guillen .213 (.681 ops)
Sanchez .200 (.595 ops)
Renteria .192 (.608 ops)
Burrell .188 (.975 ops)
Sandoval .182 (.583 ops)
Whiteside .062 (.229 ops)

If I was posting on the troll board I'd be tempted to highlight the placement of the youngsters Schierholtz and Ishikawa near the top of this list while the "proven veterans" -- the ones who are supposed to be the answer to the all-important "Who would you want up if the Giants had 2 outs, game on the line, blah blah blah" question -- are bringing up the rear. But honestly you know what I see in these numbers? Shitty luck. These are micro-splits, ranging from 18 PAs (Whiteside) to 69 (Guillen). The more you pull back to the larger situational splits like RISP and runners on the more the numbers fall in line with what you expect to see.

Either hitters like Huff and Torres who've been good with runners on have not been good with 2 out, RISP because they are "not focusing" or "not bearing down" when the situation demands that they be even more clutch (the Nonsense explanation) . Or there is something else they are doing wrong. Or they're just hitting into some shitty ass luck which should eventually even out. With still more than 1/4 of the season remaining, I'm betting it's the last of those things.

 

[filosofy29]

I'm surprised to see Huff and Burrell so low on the list. But as you say, it's a sss. Plus, situational hitting (i.e. - sacrifice fly's) don't count when there are two outs, only hits.

Panda is where I thought he'd be.

Good post ElJ.

 

[gp956]

Here's the split for the entire squad vs. their opponents. This isn't the average for other teams, but rather their 2-out RISP split when they play the Giants.


.................Avg.....OBP....SLG....OPS
Giants........208.....333....307....641
Opponents...212....333....312....645

Perhaps the Giants performance is the result of stats compiled while playing close games. As for the individual performances, it sure seems like some players (Sandoval for one) take some poor swings in this split, but I think I'll just say it's SSS bias.

 

[ElJimador]

Here's the split for the entire squad vs. their opponents. This isn't the average for other teams, but rather their 2-out RISP split when they play the Giants.


.................Avg.....OBP....SLG....OPS
Giants........208.....333....307....641
Opponents...212....333....312....645

Perhaps the Giants performance is the result of stats compiled while playing close games. As for the individual performances, it sure seems like some players (Sandoval for one) take some poor swings in this split, but I think I'll just say it's SSS bias.

That's interesting that Giants pitchers have been best in the NL w/2 out, RISP while Giants hitters have been the worst. The Giants do tend to be involved in more close games (54.9% of their ABs in games within 1 run vs. 51.4% for all NL hitters) and their batting split in that situation is below the league split as well. However, 1) how much overlap can there be between those 2 splits?, and 2) why would it be an explanation anyway when the rest of the league puts up basically the same numbers within 1 run as they do overall?

Looks to me like it's more likely just luck in both directions. Which if it starts to even out in the remaining games is a less encouraging thought than when I was just looking at the hitting side of it. Oh well. Guess we'll just have to see how it plays out.