A quick hit: Get home

It's usually easy to mention which hit hitters celebrate most in baseball: the home run. Then, everyone could make a list to their liking. But one thing is clear: hitters, depending on the game situation, can celebrate a single with the excitement of a home run, or even a sacrifice fly.

I mean, the key, of course, is for the coup to be successful. However, hitters don't celebrate a run scored with the same euphoria as a successful hit, right? And I think the answer may be reasonable: hitting is the essence of a hitter. Unless you hit a home run, scoring a run doesn't seem to have the same individual impact as it does collectively. Granted, runners always want to get home and score runs to win baseball games — but I'm sure it's still one of the most underrated statistics.

When I talk about this, I quickly remember my friend Miguel. It's been a few years since we've been able to meet again, but Miguel became one of the fans I interacted with the most when I covered baseball in the late 2000s. And when I think about him, I quickly remember how he told me: “You see peripheral statistics everywhere highlighting home runs, triples, doubles, runs batted in, walks, strikeouts. But you don't see the statistics of runs scored being published with the same importance.”

Certainly, hitters sometimes seem more concerned with hitting and succeeding. For some, most of their contribution is made when they get a hit and reach base, but nothing is more important than scoring runs in baseball.

I was thinking about those conversations last night, when Rangers catcher Jonah Heim hit a three-run homer off Brayan Bello to shatter the Red Sox's 4-0 lead. Ahead of Heim, Cuban Adolis García, who had walked a seven-pitch at-bat, scored his 100th run of the season. Of course, Heim's home run grabbed all the attention of the moment, starting a six-run rally that propelled the Rangers to a 15-5 victory overnight Wednesday.