13 extra-inning HR in Ted Williams career
Wow. That’s a lot of home runs in extra innings. In fact,
it’s the most extra-inning home runs in Red Sox history. For comparison, David
Ortiz, the greatest clutch hitter in Red Sox history, has 8 extra-inning home
runs in his career. (At least going into this year. Did he get any yet?) I
guess you can be clutch without hitting home runs in extra innings.
Which, I suppose, leads to a question. Is hitting an
extra-inning home run clutch? Is hitting a lot of them impressive? I have no
idea. Entering 2012, David Ortiz had 378 career home runs. So, those 8 extra
inning bombs represented 2.1% of all his home runs. Ted’s 13 represent 2.5% of his
lifetime 521. 2.5 is higher than 2.1. So? Don’t ask me.
Hitting an extra inning home run is also a function of
opportunity. After all, you can’t hit a home run in extra innings unless you
get an at-bat in extra innings. A better question would be, in how many of
Ted’s extra-inning at-bats did he homer?
The bottom line, though, is that hitting a home run in extra
innings is better than striking out in extra innings. It’s even better than
hitting a single in extra innings, no matter what selfish Ichiro and his fans
tell us. So, if you’ve done a good thing more often than anyone else in Red Sox
history, that’s pretty cool.
13 is for thirteen extra-inning HR in Ted Williams career
No comments:
Post a Comment