Historically, the Texas Rangers have been one of the best clutch hitting teams in baseball. Michael Young has taken the lead in that department, especially in the All Star Game. For those that don’t remember Young has two game winning hits in the Summer Classic.
That’s all changed this year, much to my surprise.
Young is known as one of the best clutch hitters in baseball. Any baseball fan knows that.
In 2006, Young hit .412 with runners in scoring position. He also had 85 RBI, which is almost all of his RBI for that year. I’m pretty sure that’s close to the best in baseball, if not the best.
The numbers stayed close to the same in 2007. Young hit .376 with 82 RBI. His numbers from 2006 would be hard to beat, so I would say his numbers were great in 2007.
In 2008, things started to change.
Last year, Young hit just .278 with 69 RBI. That’s a huge drop off from 2007.
The numbers this year are just awful two months into the season.
Young is batting a whopping .119 with seven RBI before the action tonight. That’s extremely low for Young, considering he is still batting well over .300 this year.
His decline in clutch hitting is a big reason why the Rangers offense is not hitting well with runners on second and third base.
The Rangers are hitting just .264 headed into tonight’s action. That’s good for 15th place in baseball. The team in the lead is Baltimore with a .304 batting average.
The leader in hits is Tampa Bay with 150. The Rangers have 106, that’s unusually low for this team.
The team isn’t bringing the runners around either. The team has 155 RBI, which is towards the bottom of the league.
In fact, the only meaningful statistic where the Rangers are in the top 10 with runners in scoring position is in home runs. The Rangers are tied for sixth place with 14.
Last year, the Rangers were tied for the second best batting average in scoring position with a .287 clip.
The Rangers had the most home runs and RBI in the category last year. They were second in hits.
I know the Rangers are in first place right now, but their offense isn’t as good as last year in a lot of categories. There are many things to take out of that, but Michael Young and the Rangers have to improve with runners in scoring position to continue to be successful.
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