MLB batting averages and runs per game down yearly since 2006, DH OPS in 2011 lowest since 1990-Joel Sherman

6/5/11, "The MLB batting average since 2006 has plummeted from .269 to .268 to .264 to .262 to .257 to .252.... If the .252 major-league-wide batting average holds, it will be the lowest since the pre-DH 1972 season. We are looking at the first sub-.400 (.390) slugging percentage in the sport since 1992. You would have to go back to 1988 to find an on-base percentage lower than the current .320.... The current OPS of DHs, .746, would be the lowest since 1990.

“The class of superstar player who carried the game for so long like Manny [Ramirez], [Jason] Giambi, [Miguel] Tejada, [Vlad] Guerrero, [Gary] Sheffield, Junior [Griffey], [Frank] Thomas and others have either faded or left the game, and the next generation does not have a class like that,” an AL GM said."...

In 2006, the runs per game average was 9.72 and has dropped annually to 9.59, 9.30, 9.23, 8.77

• and to 8.45 entering this weekend....

Weather

Going into the weekend, there had been 32 rainouts (11 more than all of last season) and the weather has been baseball-unfriendly pretty much across the major league map.

• So it is possible that as the temperatures warm, offenses will get hotter this season."...

6/5/11, "More than just PED crackdown behind major decline in scoring," Joel Sherman, NY Post

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