Inside Baseball: Where have baseball's hitters gone?

Perhaps no single moment better illustrated baseball's 2010 offensive slump than Ryan Howard's first-inning at-bat against the Indians on Thursday afternoon.

Howard has hit enough Citizens Bank Park home runs to recognize one when he's struck it. And after he connected with a fat fastball from fat Fausto Carmona, the Phillies first baseman clearly thought he'd done it again. The long drive touched off all the familiar Pavlovian homer responses.

The Phillies slugger dropped the bat and, standing tall and proud, walked into his trot. Carmona hung his head. Fans leaped from their seats. On Comcast SportsNet's telecast, the voice of announcer Tom McCarthy - who, along with analyst Chris Wheeler, had mentioned how well the ball was jumping in batting practice on this humid day - rose a few octaves in excited anticipation.

And then Indians centerfielder Trevor Crowe ran it down at the wall.

"That," said a clearly mystified McCarthy, "is the third ball the Phillies have hit to center field in this series that for whatever reason didn't get high enough."

"For whatever reason" has become a familiar phrase around baseball as players, coaches, broadcasters, and others try to decipher just what is causing the dip in offensive numbers.

Home runs, batting averages, runs, and slugging percentages are all down from 2009. There have been two perfect games, a third that should have been, two no-hitters, and countless no-hit flirtations.

Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez has put up pre-All-Star Game numbers - 13 wins, an ERA of 1.60 - that bring to mind Denny McLain and 1968, the Year of the Pitcher. That year, you might recall, Bob Gibson had an ERA of 1.12, McLain won 31 games, Carl Yastrzemski won the AL batting title with a .301 average, and the AL hit like Juan Castro, finishing with an anemic league-wide average of .231.

While things aren't nearly that dramatic this year, there are plenty of theories for the decline, most of which have more holes than Russell Branyan's swing.

Is it an absence of steroids? An improvement in pitching? Too many swing-from-the-heels batters? Is it the balls that aren't as lively, and not the hitters?