Philadelphia’ s Kyle Schwarber and San Francisco’ s Lamonte Wade Jr. are both their team’ s primary leadoff hitters despite below-average speed with little-to-no stolen base poten…
In earlier eras, who to bat atop the Orioles’ lineup would’ve been an obvious decision.
The Orioles have joined that group of teams in recent weeks with Adley Rutschman, the club’s new leadoff hitter , after he assumed the role with Mullins in the injured list. Rutschman, who leads the team with a .367 on-base percentage but has yet to steal a base this season, has led off Baltimore’s past 19 games.
The argument for Mullins to reclaim his spot is his history of success in the role. Nearly 88% of his career starts going back to 2018 have come in the leadoff spot. Every game he started in his 2021 All-Star campaign was in the top spot. With 30-plus stolen bases in each of the previous two seasons and 15 this year, Mullins’ speed could be a small boost ahead of Rutschman, Henderson and Anthony Santander.
However, Mullins has done some of his best damage early in counts. In his career entering Friday, he’s hitting .311 when he swings at the first pitch of an at-bat and .239 when he doesn’t. This year, he’s slashing .195/.267/.195 when he leads off games and .212/.291/.323 when he leads off any inning. On the season, Mullins is slashing .253/.334/.448 — good for a .782 OPS.
“It’s a little bit different for a baseball team to have their catcher lead off,” Orioles starting pitcher Kyle Gibson said. “But I saw it a little bit with [Joe] Mauer in Minnesota, and it works out pretty good, especially when your catcher can put together at-bats like Adley does.” Meanwhile, in his career, Rutschman has been worse with runners in scoring position than in other situations. Entering Friday, the 25-year-old owned a career .226 average and .726 OPS with runners in scoring position compared with a .284 average and .842 OPS with the bases empty.
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