How much is the temperature affecting scoring?

Anyone for hockey? With temperatures in the 30s and 40s for many games, and 10 inches of snow on the field postponing a whole weekend of baseball in Cleveland, it hardly feels like the baseball season. And now Cleveland’s home is Milwaukee -- isn’t that strange? Nevertheless, play we must and any kind of baseball is better than no baseball.

The old joke “I spent a month in Cleveland last weekend” certainly applied to all the Indians and Mariners waiting for games. However, while there were three double-headers postponed and Friday night’s game was postponed with only one strike needed to become official, they only count as three games postponed in total. There were three others postponed elsewhere around baseball as well. The total of six games doesn’t seem that much more than the four postponed at this point last season.

It’s in scoring runs that the temperature is really showing itself. For the first time since our own records at Baseball Info Solutions began in 2002, run scoring is below nine runs per game. Here are the season records and the first ten-days records for the last six years: