The percentage, in case you were wondering as balls fly out of parks in Texas and San Diego, is 53.5 percent.
Of the 245 runs scored in MLB's debut of playoff bracketball, 131 of those runs have come via home runs.
That's 53.5 percent.
And as MLB.com's Mike Petriello points out here, teams are now 19-1 in the postseason (28 games played and counting) when they hit more home runs than their opponent in a bracketball game.
The Yankees lead the playoff home-run race with 14 postseason homers, but face elimination in the ALDS because their rival Rays have clobbered nine homers to New York's seven in the series, bringing Tampa's postseason homer total up to 12.
The A's have mashed 13 homers in six postseason games, but face elimination at the hands of the Astros, who homered three times in each of their first two ALDS wins against Oakland. The A's grabbed their first win of the series in Game 3, by homering five times in that game. The Astros only mustered a meager two homers in that loss, bringing their postseason total to nine in five games. Mercy. Meanwhile the Braves are up 2-0 on the Marlins in the NLDS with a 5-1 advantage in home runs.
Defying the laws of bracketball physics, the Dodgers are leading the Padres 2-0 in the NLDS despite hitting a measly two postseason home runs, and just one in this series. But, check the box scores if you're not watching the games. (You should be watching the games. This is the best series going.) The powerful Padres, mashers of six homers in their wild-card series defeat of the Cardinals, have homered just twice against the Dodgers. What could have been a third home run was robbed at the wall Wednesday night on an outstanding catch by Dodgers center fielder Cody Bellinger. If he doesn't come down with that Fernando Tatis Jr. shot, the series could be tied.
The point?
Power plays.
Now more than ever before.
And especially in bracketball.
MLB.com found that the regular-season winning percentage of teams that hit more home runs than their opponent has climbed to .870 over the last five seasons That's up from .742 between 1980 and 1999.
Specific to this postseason, though, that first number we mentioned � 53.5% � would be the highest percentage of runs scored via home run in the postseason since the start of the divisional era, MLB.com found.
I pointed to the theme as the Cardinals exited, and the impossible-to-ignore results continue to roll in.
If the expanded postseason sticks around, and the marching orders from Rob Manfred suggest that is the case, then there are reasons to believe this trend will continue.
The designated hitter is in play, perhaps for good. The three-batter rule on pitchers forces managers into match-ups they don't always love. Three-game first-round series tip the scales toward power, not pitching, and the more crowded postseason schedule does a lot more to wear down arms than it does bats.
The 2020 Cardinals ranked second-to-last in all of baseball in average at-bats per home run (34.35) during the regular-season. They finished fourth-to-last in regular-season slugging percentage (.371). Since hitting coach Jeff Albert was hired entering the 2019 season, the Cardinals rank fifth-to-last in regular-season at-bats per home run (27.59) and fourth-to-last in slugging percentage (.404).
Power isn't everything. But the Cardinals' power is seriously lacking, and it showed even in the postseason despite a seven-run Game 1 win and a nine-run Game 2 loss before the Padres pulled off the shutout in Game 3.
When the Cardinals hit more home runs than the Padres, they won. When they didn't, they lost. Twice.
The trend can't be ignored.
The Cardinals can't let a complicated offseason stop them from finding talent and/or hitting instruction that can flip the power switch.
