It sure seems like the Phillies are scoring a lot of runs that aren’t earned these days. Enough, at least, to make me wonder how the percentage of the runs that the Phillies are scoring that are earned compares to the other teams in baseball. The table below shows, for all 30 teams, the percentage of the runs they have scored this season that have been earned (the table doesn’t include Thursday’s games):

Team % of runs scored that are earned
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30		 Baltimore Orioles 
New York Yankees 
Cleveland Indians 
Florida Marlins 
Houston Astros 
San Francisco Giants 
Atlanta Braves 
Toronto Blue Jays 
Tampa Bay Rays 
Boston Red Sox 
Arizona Diamondbacks 
St. Louis Cardinals 
Pittsburgh Pirates 
Milwaukee Brewers 
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 
Minnesota Twins 
Detroit Tigers 
Los Angeles Dodgers 
Chicago White Sox 
Philadelphia Phillies 
Oakland Athletics 
Texas Rangers 
San Diego Padres 
Cincinnati Reds 
Washington Nationals 
Colorado Rockies 
Seattle Mariners 
Kansas City Royals 
New York Mets 
Chicago Cubs 		 96.76%
95.41%
94.66%
94.55%
94.37%
93.81%
93.64%
93.38%
92.67%
92.51%
92.31%
92.14%
91.83%
91.63%
91.15%
91.01%
90.76%
90.59%
90.57%
90.35%
89.60%
89.58%
89.47%
88.89%
88.79%
88.52%
88.14%
87.80%
87.44%
86.96%

So the Phillies are in the bottom half at 20, but they aren’t going to win any awards or anything.

It is true that the Phillies have a higher percentage of their runs scored this year than they have in the last few years. Here’s the number of runs and earned runs they have scored over the past six seasons and the percentage of runs scored in each year that were earned:

Year Runs Earned Runs % of runs that were earned
2011 228 206 90.4
2010 772 708 91.7
2009 820 765 93.3
2008 799 739 93.7
2007 892 818 91.7
2006 865 761 88.0

So while the numbers aren’t that dramatic compared to the other teams in baseball, the Phils have had their highest percentage of unearned runs since the 2006 season so far in 2011.

Of course, the much bigger problem for the Phils is not how many of the runs they score that are unearned, but how few runs they are scoring altogether. Looking at the six seasons from 2006-2011 in the table above, in three of those years (’06, ’07 and ’09) the Phils lead the NL in runs scored. In 2010 they were second and in 2008 they were third. So far in 2011 they are ninth in the NL in runs scored.