Max Scherzer misses hitting. He misses pitching to pitchers.
And yet the New York Mets right-hander is just fine with the full-time addition of the designated hitter to the National League as of this season, nearly 50 years after the American League adopted it.
“The biggest benefit,” the three-time Cy Young Award winner said, “is that the sport is under one set of rules.”
So now all Major League Baseball games, regardless of location, include a DH in the lineup. The ballot for Sunday’s All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium included a DH for the NL (reigning MVP Bryce Harper of the Philadelphia Phillies led the voting for that spot but is out with a broken left thumb and will be replaced by William Contreras of the World Series champion Atlanta Braves). And scoring is up in the NL in 2022.
“In the future, you might be able to do some type of realignment, because everyone has the same rules,” Scherzer said. “I don’t know what it would look like, but you have more possibilities to do that.”
Adding the DH should increase offense by putting a real batter in the lineup. It also changes a manager’s job by eliminating some of the decisions about pinch-hitting, double-switching, etc.
“I’ve thought about it a few times: ‘When’s the pitcher coming up?’” Arizona Diamondbacks skipper Torey Lovullo said early in the season.
Runs per game for NL teams were at 4.5 through June this season, an increase from 4.31 through June in 2021 (although still down from 4.78 in 2019).
Over that same portion of each year from 2017-21 (minus the pandemic-shortened 2020), pitchers for NL teams combined to produce a .154 batting average, .152 slugging percentage and .306 OPS with per-season average league-wide totals of 7.6 homers and 79.2 RBIs.
Compare that to the NL DH stats this year: .241 average,…
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