Everything is rosie in Ray-ville because the Rays are scoring runs.  In fact, they are scoring Runs as one of the best offensive teams in the league.  However, I am concerned that this trend will end soon, and our offensive numbers will come crashing down.  At that point we will start hearing how every bodies batting average outside Crawford and Longoria is terrible.  Why do we have to wait until runs come down to notice that our player by player offensive production is simply not that good.

First lets look at our team wOBA.

The Rays are 10th in team wOBA following our 2 AL east rivals.

If we break it down to the player level, the numbers get more concerning.  Our top wOBA performer is John Jaso(.470) who is sporting an unsustainable walk rate (23.1%) and a very small sample size.  Thanks be to Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford who have good offensive production that we can expect to continue.  After the small sample size of Willy Aybar we get into struggle town which is where most of our team is residing. Slightly above .330 wOBA for Upton and Brignac and sub .320 for everybody else including our lead off hitter at an underwhelming .300.

Surely these numbers suggest that we shouldn't be at the top of the league in offense and we won't be able to sustain our offensive production going forward unless we have some improvements out of 60% of the lineup.

I do expect some of the offensive production to increase from Bartlett, Zobrist and Pena.  I don't know when it will happen, and if it never does we will be in some big trouble.

First let me start by saying that I am a new fan to baseball.  When ever I submerge my self in any interest, I attempt to read and learn everything I can about it.  I must say that I have learned so much about baseball that I couldn't even fathom before I looked into it.  From what I have read and seen, "clutch" hitting is overrated and not statistically reliable.  I have seen the facts and the numbers and I believe it.  Each at bat is essentially the same (with minor flunctuations for situations) and so your ability to get a hit and drive in runs is the same.  However, there is that part of sports that numbers just can't quantify.  Its that human element.  I think sometimes those sabermetrics die hards forget that this game is played by PEOPLE and not machines.

What I'm wondering, is even for those who are die hard numbers and sabermetrics people, how much do you actually believe in clutch hitting (aside from numbers)?  It seems like clutch hitting and RISP is our big problem.  Well obviously it has been.  Is it something we can't do anything about?  Do we just have to wait for the stats to even themselves out?

Heres some numbers:

Rays: OPS/Runs  .748/468

Angels OPS/Runs .721/474

Angels have also been scoring runs when they need to, which leads to the best record in baseball.

Is RISP hitting just luck and something that should even out eventually, or is there more to it?