Oakland is a scary team to play right now, especially for one game. Because Oakland wasn't supposed to be there. ... Oakland, I think has a lot to gain, a little to lose. They're not intimidated by anybody. It doesn't matter who you throw on that mound. Those kids in Oakland have a lot of talent, they're not intimidated, and they can swing it.
The record for the fewest sacrifice bunts in a season is eight, set by the 2016 Red Sox. This season, four teams broke the record: the Blue Jays had five, the Athletics had six, and the Red Sox and Dodgers had seven.
According to Baseball-Reference.com, there have been nine teams with ten or few sacrifice hits, i.e., bunts in a single season. Eight of those occurrences have been in the past three seasons; the only outlier is Texas in 2005 (nine).
ReplyDeleteAtlanta and Cincinnati tied for the highest team total in 2018 (49). In comparison, the 1917 Boston Red Sox finished with 310 sacrifice hits, the highest single-season team total.
It would be great to see if the league average has declined as the use of sabermetrics has become more common. Unfortunately, I cannot make the Play Index pull this for me.
Why WOULD Oakland be intimidated? They finished only a handful of games behind the Yanks, played 'em even this year, game is in a 10-year old stadium, not any kind of baseball cathedral, against a team of young players with a few games of playoff experience between 'em who haven't won shit. It ain't '03, Pedro, it's '18!
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