An early look at the RISP stat

How do the Orioles do as individual hitters and as a team when batting with runners in scoring position? It is a stat worth tracking and one that can have some meaning. How are the Orioles doing cashing in on scoring chances when they present themselves? First of all, be cautioned that reading anything into seven games' worth of stats is foolish, but nonetheless, here are some of the numbers. As team the Orioles are batting .254 (16-for-63) with RISP. They are just 1-for-9 over the last two games after batting .278 with RISP in the first five games. They scored 34 runs in those first five games and have just four in the last two contests. Adam Jones and Chris Davis are a combined 10-for-20 so far batting with RISP with a combined overall 25 RBIs. Yes that is exceptional. The Orioles have 37 RBIs as a team so Davis and Jones have combined to produce 67.6 percent of them so far. Five players have decent to very good stats so far in this category: 6-for-10: Chris Davis 4-for-10: Adam Jones 2-for-7: Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters 1-for-2: Nate McLouth Add those five players up and you get 15-for-36, for an average of .417. These four are not doing well with RISP at this very early stage: 1-for-8: Manny Machado 0-for-7: J.J. Hardy 0-for-4: Ryan Flaherty and Nolan Reimold That is a combined 1-for-23, average of .043. Again, it's way too early to even talk about trends with these stats, but this is what the stat sheet tells us so far. Some batting averages from 2012 with RISP: .367 - Manny Machado .294 - Chris Davis .276 - Nick Markakis .264 - J.J. Hardy .258 - Adam Jones .254 - Matt Wieters .184 - Nate McLouth What is your take?: How important is the RISP stat?