Is the streaking Chase Utley a great hitter on an 0-2 count?

John Dewan's Stat of the Week^™

August 3, 2006

How bad is it for the hitter to fall behind 0-2 in the count? Real bad. To the tune of a .186 batting average after an 0-2 count this year for all MLB players combined. Obviously, hitters want to avoid reaching that count as often as possible.

As a whole, major league hitters reach that count in 18% of their plate appearances, but here are the hitters who significantly exceed that level and have gone 0-2 most often in 2006 thus far:

Chase Utley on this list? The man with the 33-game hitting streak? That's remarkable. His .211 batting average after an 0-2 count is above average, but hardly extraordinary.

Here are the hitters who have hit best after an 0-2 count so far this year (40 or more 0-2 counts):

Now that's hitting. By the way, Ichiro is at .257 (19 for 74), above average as you might expect.

Here's one more interesting list. These are the players who have worked the most walks after having reached 0-2:

Hafner, Howard, Dunn, Ortiz, Thome—a treasure-trove of left-handed power hitters.

Used with permission from John Dewan's Stat of the Week™, www.statoftheweek.com.

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