Are Strikeouts Contagious?

One of the old announcer cliches used to be that hitting is contagious.  I wonder if the same applies to strikeouts.  Looks that way on this Cubs homestand.  The Cubs added 9 this evening, bringing their total for the four games at Wrigley to 53 against a two walks, none tonight.  That, in addition to some spotty and sloppy play in the field has led to a single win in four tries.

The Cubs pitching has not been too bad on the current stand either, so there is really no excuse for the pathetic offense.  Wood pitched pretty well, as did Wada.   Even Jackson only allowed four runs instead of the usual eight on Saturday.  Arrieta pitched a great game last night.  But for naught.

I guess one reason the Cubs don't score is their lineup.  I mean, they would not score many runs anyway because of their lack of plate discipline and, lets be honest here, actual talent, but now that Renteria has settled on a more or less consistent lineup day-to-day, you kind of wonder about the order and how anyone could think it made much sense.  Coghlan is having a nice year and makes some sense leading off, especially given the alternatives, but why is Baez batting second?

The theory is that batting in front of Rizzo he will get pitches to hit.  However, since he swings at everything whether it is over his head or bouncing in, no one is going to throw him a pitch to hit unless by accident.  Rizzo make sense third and I guess Castro, the only other guy who can hit with some consistency, can be justified.  Valbuena fifth, though.  Come on.  Leaving aside the question of whether he should be playing at all, batting him fifth is an instant rally-killer.  Teams have figured out that he is dangerous on occasion in a fastball count, so he never sees one he can hit.

Similarly, Alcantara is fast and seems a natural to bat second.  Since Renteria dropped him down to sixth to take the pressure off, he is batting .167.  Go figure.  For the rest, Rugiano and Castillo, you are not expecting much consistency and that's what you get.

Actually, I've never understood the baseball cliche of putting certain guys in front of power hitters and others behind them for protection.  I guess the idea of putting another good hitter behind your best hitter means that pitchers will not necessarily pitch around him, though the theory breaks down somewhat depending on the skill level of the secondary player.  In the case of Rizzo and Castro, I would argue the situation benefits Castro more than Rizzo.  Witness the number of walks Rizzo takes.  Teams are quite content to pitch carefully to Rizzo and take their chances with Castro.

With respect to the notion of batting a less skilled hitter or less experienced hitter in front of a power guy, a similar measure of skill levels applies to its success.  Alcantara, who has some rudimentary awareness of the strike zone, benefited from batting in front of Rizzo to the extent he saw more fastball strikes, pitches he is comfortable hitting, given that pitchers did not want to face Rizzo with men on base.  Baez, since he has no idea whatever of the strike zone, derives no benefit from batting in front of the team's best hitter, since pitchers will continue to throw him bad pitches until he demonstrates that he can take them and work the count to his advantage.  He actually hurts Rizzo by batting in front of him as he does not get on base or put the ball in play, so that in the long run, Rizzo will bat more often with no one on base and probably two outs.