Harrison Bader, often the Cardinals’ eighth hitter in previous seasons, led off the second inning in the first game. After he singled, I remember thinking: Ugh, the pitcher is coming up.
And then, I had this merry moment of realization: Wait, no! The pitcher is not coming up! Bader is the ninth hitter, there now is a National League designated hitter ... and I won’t have to endure the worst part of a baseball game ever again.
I might be in the minority, especially in this time-honored baseball town of ours. But for all the tradition of pitchers hitting — and the fascinating strategy involving double-switches and sacrifice bunts and such — I disliked the experience of watching a pitcher actually bat. It got in the way of the game. It prevented the flow of an offense, the smooth churning of a lineup. It was a waste of time.
I did wonder if I'd miss the ritual of it all. It was the NL's "thing," so to speak. But as we head into the 70th game of the Cardinals' season, here’s thinking the DH in the NL has really improved the game-viewing experience. Sure, the Cards have a couple of guys whose batting averages look like a pitcher’s. But it’s still better than having some paltry pitcher up there — these sultans of naught — who wildly flail at pitches like someone trying to swat a fly.
Each game, I relish that internal reminder, as you get toward the bottom of the order and remember the ninth hitter isn’t a pitcher.
Incidentally, the Cardinals entered the week ranked sixth in the NL (and 14th in Major League Baseball) with a DH on-base percentage plus slugging percentage of .733. As a team, the Cardinals’ overall OPS is .730; last year, it was .725.
As a whole, the OPS of National League designated hitters is .728, while last year the OPS of NL hitting pitchers was .288.
Interestingly, the 2022 teams in the National League getting the most offensive production from the DH spot aren’t the league’s top teams, while that is the case in the American League.
Now, in the NL in general, the overall OPS of every player combined is lower than last year. This current season, the NL OPS is .713, while last year it was .725.
A fellow named Neil Greenberg, who covers sports analytics for The Washington Post, described that “batted balls aren’t traveling as far when solid contact is made this season — the ball is traveling four fewer feet than last year even off barrels — and more pitches out of the zone are drawing swings. There have also been fewer four-seam fastballs thrown this season and more sinkers and change-ups, which has reduced the effectiveness of hitters across the board.”
But from a positive standpoint, he also pointed out that bunting has gone down this season — as have the number of pinch-hitters used. Again, a positive standpoint to me. Maybe you really enjoyed the sacrifice bunting of a pitcher and the strategy and selflessness that came with it. I just like watching a batter knowing he could very well hit the heck out of any pitch.
Yes, of course, I feel bad for pitcher Adam Wainwright, who thoroughly enjoyed hitting. He provided some epic — if not historic — moments in the batter’s box, beginning with a homer in his first plate appearance. (And on the first pitch, too!) He won the Silver Slugger in 2017. Even led to a “batting ‘Waino’” bobblehead. And he entered the 2021 season with a .199 career average. The hope would’ve been that "Waino" went over the Mendoza Line (a .200 batting average) in what seemed, at the time, likely the last year without the NL DH. Alas, he hit just .123, so his career average is stuck at .193.
The Wainwright stuff was fun and made for fodder. And any time a hitting pitcher did, well, anything well, it made for something to tweet about. It was a quirk of the game. But I’m fine with it being a quirk of last year or yesteryear.
The DH in the NL provides many more benefits to the game, notably a competitive balance in interleague play (it’s currently 62-61, American League, in 2022) and runs created by both leagues. And over time, NL managers (and general managers) should adapt and get more adept at deploying designated hitters.
Also, it will obviously reduce the number of pitchers getting hurt while batting. Now, those injuries were rare. But consider how Jack Flaherty’s oblique injury affected the 2021 Cardinals. And St. Louis native Max Scherzer, a star of the game, once suffered an injury at the plate, too.
And the DH gives a NL manager new options for resting players. New Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol often has seized the options as opportunities to keep stars off their feet in the field — but keep their bats in the lineup.
But in the end, the NL designated hitter is a win because it eliminates that internal tug — the feeling of “ugh” — when a starting pitcher came to bat, and you just knew the next couple of minutes would make a long game feel that much longer.
As for that first game, remember how the No. 9 hitter Bader led off the second with a hit? Well, sure enough, he scored in that inning on a home run by Tyler O’Neill, the cleanup hitter.
And, fittingly, the only bunting on opening day was red, white and blue and hanging in the stadium.
