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Figuring Out a Batting AverageHave you ever wondered how to figure out or raise your batting average? Do you know what it means if a batter is batting 350? Well you've found the right page. You'll discover Some tricky situations in scoring to watch out for and
How to Raise your Batting Average
In its simplest form it is just hits divided by the number of at bats. What makes it complicated is because there are times when a batter comes up to the plate that they don't consider it an at bat. Huh?
Let's slow that down a little. Every time a person comes up to the plate one of 11 things can happen. The simple ones don't cause us too much trouble for figuring out batting average. 1) A strikeout, creating an out without ever touching the ball. This equals 1 At Bat (AB) and 0 hits (H). 2) A ball hit to the fielder who catches it in the air, via a fly ball or a line drive. Still 1 AB 0 H. 3) A ball in on the ground to a fielder (or the fielder drops a line drive or fly ball) and throws it to first base and gets the batter/runner out. Again 1 AB 0 H. 4) A ball that gets by the fielders in such a way as to get the batter safe at first base. This can be a fly, line drive, grounder, or bunt. It can be a hit that goes over the fence in the air for a home run or bounces over for a double. But in all cases it counts as 1 AB and 1 H. It doesn't matter if he tries to run past 1st and makes an out after the hit. Trickier Cases for figuring a Batting Average 5) A ball hit on the ground (or the fielder drops a line drive or fly ball) and decide to throw it to another base to get another runner out. (This is called a fielder's choice). It counts as 1 AB and 0 H. 6) A ball hit on the ground (or drops as in 3 & 5) and the fielder attempts to get you or another runner out, but something goes wrong on the defense and they create an error and everyone is safe. Sorry, but this still counts as 1 AB and 0 H. 7) A ball hit on the ground that doesn't get bobbled by the defense, but the batter/runner beats the throw to first. This is a hit - 1 AB 1 H. Trickiest Cases for figuring a Batting Average 8) The pitcher throws 4 balls for a walk. This doesn't count as an At Bat! But is also doesn't count as a Hit. So it's scored as 0 AB 0 H. 9) The same thing happens if the batter gets hit by a pitch. 0 AB 0 H. 10) This rarely happens, but if the catcher interferes with the hitter the batter is awarded 1st base for free, like a walk or Hit Batsman. So the ruling is the same - 0 AB 0 H.
11) If the batter hits the ball in the air, on a line drive, or a grounder that hits one of his team mates, who is off the base, in fair ground, this is an out on that runner, but the batter gets 1st base and is awarded a hit - 1 AB 1 H.
Each At Bat is credited to the individual doing the batting even if there is a pinch hitter or substitute. (The pinch hitter will get the AB (or not) and the Hit (or not) not the original hitter (even if the original hitter had balls and strikes on them when they were up). That's a very long explanation of every scenario that you need to know before you even start adding up AB's and H's and doing the dividing of Hits by the At Bats to get your batting average.
So in a game a person might get 1 Hit, get out twice and walk once, making it 1 Hit for 3 official At Bats. This means that they get a hit 33% of the time. But we don't call it that. We leave it in its decimal form - .333 and call it "Three thirty-three". It's always been done that way. Don't ask me why. It's always the first number then the second two numbers, with the exception of when it is a multiple of 100 (i.e. .100, .200, .500, .700, etc). Those are called batting "One Hundred", "Two Hundred", on up. If you bat perfectly, where you get a hit for every at bat (1.000) you're batting "A Thousand". The Hits and At Bats are added to one another from game to game to come up with a season average. So Three Fifty is getting a Hit 35 times out of every 100 At Bats.
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