Four teams remain: the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. Hitters across the playoffs carry a .208/.291/.334 slash line. The Division Series was even grimmer at .192/.284/.304, with 3.06 runs per game.
Usually the run average drops about half a run from the regular season to October. This year it fell more than a full run. The Brewers and Dodgers open the NLCS Sunday night at American Family Field, and the Guardians and Rays start the ALCS Monday at Tropicana Field.
Runs are scarce, and the history on the line is not. The Dodgers can become the first National League team to threepeat. If they fall, a long drought ends instead. Cleveland hasn't won the World Series since 1948. The Brewers, around since 1970, and the Rays, since 1998, have never won one. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt called it "a difficult year" on Saturday, then pointed to being "one step away from the World Series, our ultimate goal."
CBS Sports points out that some of the drop is probably sample-size noise, since teams have played only 25 games and at most 21 remain.
Still, the record for quiet bats sits just 0.03 runs per game away, held by 2012 at 3.49.