Down On Strikes

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been striking out a ton in the early stages of this 2011 season. Through 3 games (27 innings), they have gone down on strikes 32 times. That's a ridiculous amount. Let's take a closer look:

Here's the strikeout leaders so far this year, a long with their career strikeout rates:

Neil Walker: 13 AB, 6 K, .189 K/PA
Lyle Overbay: 11 AB, 5 K, .184 K/PA
Pedro Alvarez: 13 AB, 3 K, .307 K/PA
Ronny Cedeno: 10 AB, 3 K, .196 K/PA
Matt Diaz: 6 AB, 3 K, .184 K/PA
Garrett Jones: 10 AB, 2 K, .200 K/PA
Ryan Doumit: 7 AB, 2 K, .176 K/PA
Jose Tabata: 11 AB, 2 K, .129 K/PA

First of all, to put those K/PA (strikeouts per plate appearance) numbers into perspective, Mark Reynolds, the easiest man to strike out in the majors today, has a K/PA of .336. One the other end of that is Yadier Molina, who strikes out only .085 times per plate appearance. That puts the average somewhere around .210-.220, a very rough estimate. Alvarez is the only one with a really awful career strikeout rate, and that is with a very small sample.

There's really not too much else to say. It's obvious that it's much harder to get on base if you don't put the ball in play. The Pirates win on Sunday showed the importance of getting wood on the ball, they collected 16 hits without hitting the ball hard more than 5-6 times. Good things happen when you make contact, and the Pirates have not done a good job of that early on this year.

We'll be keeping an eye on the strikeout rates for this team as the year progresses, I'm guessing it will get better, but I can see it being a serious problem all year long.