If you were watching Sunday night's USA vs. Venezuela WBC game, you saw a 10 pitch at bat by Kevin Youkilis against Yoel Hernandez end in a home run. After the blast, one of the ESPN commentators (either Charlie Steiner or Jose Mota) stated that Hernandez was at the mercy of Youkilis, who had fouled off all of the good pitches and was just "waiting for a mistake". Sounds intuitive enough, right? I didn't think so. Any at bat of 5 pitches or more is guaranteed to have 2 strikes, and we all know that the batting average of most hitters severely suffers with two strikes (just as they get a "boost" when they are ahead in the count). Surely, I thought, this was just typical "announcery": a general statement made based on something in the game that just happened with no prior research.
This is exactly why I was shocked to learn that Kevin Youkilis hit .281/.452/.485 in 2008 in his 32 at bats of 7 pitches or more. Not too shabby, and certainly much higher of a batting average than I would have predicted (the high OBP isn't surprising since 7+ pitch at bats usually have three balls as well). It doesn't appear to be a fluke, either. In 2005-2007, Youkilis did even better in at bats of 7 or more pitches:
2007: .342/.627/.553 (38 at bats)
2006: .350/.530/.639 (60 at bats)
2005: .450/.600/.909 (11 at bats)
So, Charlie Steiner and Jose Mota, whether or not you researched this one, you got it right.
(source: BillJamesOnline.com)
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