Phillies Hitting with Runners in Scoring Position

The Phillies' offense has been up and down this season, with periods where they were 15th in scoring (first 16 games), then 2nd in scoring (next 25 games), and awful again (last 3). But overall, they've been about average:

3.95 runs per game (9th, Lg Avg 4.06)
.703 OPS (9th, Lg Avg .704)
wOBA .312 (7th, Lg Avg .309)

And in slightly more detail:

OBP: .316 (7th, Lg Avg .316)
SLG: .387 (8th, Lg Avg .388)
(breaking SLG down even further, their BA is 4th, and ISO is 13th)

But they've seemingly managed to climb to the middle of the pack despite an utter lack of ability to do anything with men on base, and in particular with runners in scoring position (and most frustrating, with men on 3rd and less than two out).

Given their essentially league-average offense, we should expect that they are also league-average in those particular situations. Let's see if they are.

WIth Men on Base

NL Team Stats - Phils: .277/.336/.418 (.755 OPS) - 4th (Lg Avg .721)
- OBP is 7th, SLG is 5th, and they have the 2nd-most doubles in the league in those situations.

With Runners in Scoring Position

NL Team Stats - Phils: .257/.325/.375 (.700 OPS) - 9th (Lg Avg .704)

All Phillies hitters, and the 10 with most PAs, by OPS:
Nix ........417/.533/.917 (1.450) - only 15 PAs
Ruiz .......343/.381/.486 (.867)
Victorino .317/.391/.463 (.855)
Pence .....228/.328/.386 (.714)
Galvis .....233/.267/.395 (.662)
Pierre .....290/.281/.323 (.604) - OBP lower than BA
Rollins ....194/.350/.226 (.576)
Wigginton .207/.257/.276 (.533)
Polanco ...240/.240/.280 (.520)
Mayberry ..160/.241/.200 (.441)

With Runners on 3rd and less than two out

NL Team Stats - Phils: .262/.256/.400 (.656 OPS) - 11th (Lg Avg .750)
They've had a runner on 3rd with less than two outs 79 times this year. They've only scored that runner 29 of those 79 times -- the 37% rate is last in the NL.

(also, they're the only team to have a lower OBP than BA in those situations)

All Phillies hitters, and the those with 6+ opportunities:

Pence ......4 for 16, 25%
Ruiz ........7 for 10, 70%
Victorino ..4 for 9, 44%
Mayberry ..1 for 8, 13%
Wigginton 4 for 6, 67%
Rollins ..., 1 for 6, 17%

Summary

So yes -- they've been horrendous with men on third and less than two out.

And they haven't been particularly good with runners in scoring position. In fact they have had some spectacular failures in those situations in recent games that could have meant the difference between winning and losing.

But overall, with RISP they are about where we would expect them to be given their overall performance, and in fact their batting average with RISP is 4th in the NL. All too often those hits have not scored runners, either because they never left the infield, or due to baserunning mistakes, and those are frustrating to watch, but in the end their runs scored per PA in RISP situations is 8th in the NL.