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Pittsburgh Pirates: Hits to Tie Or Take The Lead

There’s different measurements of skill, and the term clutch gets brought up. In the book The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, authors Mitchel Lichtman, Tom Tango, and Andrew Dolphin concluded that,

“For all practical purposes, a player can be expected to hit equally well in the clutch as he would be expected to do in an ordinary situation.”

In other words, clutch wouldn’t be a skill that a player possesses. But clutchness can happen, especially looking back. Merriam-Webster defines clutch as “successful in a crucial situation.” Certainly aspects of a players season can be defined as clutch, such as David Ortiz’s grandslam during the 2013 ALCS to tie the game at five.