The Indians have not exactly been clutch so far in 2014

After numerous games of watching our hitters struggle to come up with a key base hit in a key moment, I surmised that they were approaching a level of ineptitude rarely seen.

One way of looking at this is to examine performance with runners in scoring positions (RISP), specifically with two outs, at bats when usually either at least one run will score, or the inning (and scoring threat) will end. I chose this because I feel the Tribe has left a lot of guys in scoring position, which is a very "unclutch" thing to do. Turns out that yes, they have done terribly. Here are the ten worst teams this season (through Monday's games):

Thankfully the Tribe is not the worst this year, but when you are in Astros territory, that does not bode well. The only thing that's kept the Indians out of the basement is their ability to take a walk. The Indians are still 174 points behind league average in OPS. The Indians' .214 slugging percentage is the worst of any team. Their sub-.200 BAbip is really bad too, hopefully we'll see some positive regression there (and everywhere) soon.

How does this compare to the team's very worst seasons with two outs and RISP? Records prior to 1973 are incomplete, so I reran the data from that point forward.

Here are the Indians' five worst seasons since 1973:

1. 1989: .543 OPS
2. 1981: .607 OPS
3. 1987: .625 OPS
4. 1992: .643 OPS
5. 2003: .648 OPS

The full slash line for 1989 was .175 (BA, .293 (OBP), .250 (SLG). Each of those is the team's worst figure from the 40+ years for which this data is complete.

Just so it's not all doom include, here are the Indians' five best seasons since 1973:

1. 1999: .953 OPS
2. 2006: .850 OPS
3. 1994: .846 OPS
4. 1996: .840 OPS
5. 2001: .823 OPS

Those best seasons were somewhat the result of MLB's historically high levels of offense during those years, but that 1999 team was tremendous with RISP even without the benefit of the era they played in.

Back to the bad seasons...

Even as bad as that 1989 team was (really bad), the 2014 squad is on pace to shatter those numbers. (Yes, it's only been a month, and things will get better... but how much better?)

I found it was odd that a third of the league has an OPS under 600, considering the Indians have only finish so low once. I decided to look at how many teams around MLB finished below 600 for an entire season since 1973. There have been only 22 such seasons, out of a total of 1132 team seasons since then. 22 out of 1132 works out to just 1.9% of all seasons, so a sub-600 OPS with RISP and 2 outs is rare indeed. Here are those 22 seasons:

Yes that's right, our very own Indians own the very worst season in the last 41 years!

The likelihood that all ten (or even three) of the current teams below 600 will stay there is pretty small. 1974 was the only year with three teams. Using the incomplete data from 1968, the Year of the Pitcher, also had only three teams below that mark.

Finally, let's identify the biggest culprits for the Tribe's struggles in this area so far in 2014:

Cabrera, Swisher, Kipnis have been dreadful with just one hit and seven walks between them. Santana is only third best because he has five walks to go with his lone single. Murphy and Bourn are the only bright spots, with even Michael Brantley putting up poor numbers in these situations so far.

The Tribe bats need to awaken in a bad way. The numbers are downright dreadful and would set records right and left. Luckily they have five months to try and not only pass that 1989 team, but hopefully move all the way up to respectability.