Home runs and runs were down for the second successive season this year, but do not jump to conclusions.

It would be easy to speculate that the absence of steroids and amphetamines has had a debilitating effect on hitters, resulting in fewer home runs being hit and fewer runs scored. But the reduced numbers aren’t unique to the years when testing scared players off the stuff.

It wasn’t that many years ago that the major leagues experienced a similar dropoff in home runs and runs scored. We need to go back only to 2001 and 2002, courtesy of Elias Sports Bureau, to find the last time those figures fell for two successive seasons.

But if you want to mull more intriguing offensive figures, check out individual home run totals. For the first time in four years no player hit 50 home runs, and for the first time since 1992 only two players hit 40 or more home runs.

Ryan Howard (48) and Adam Dunn (40) were the players who slugged 40 or more this year, and since both hit those home runs in the National League, this season, Elias found, was the first since 1989 that no American League player hit 40. Fred McGriff led the A.L. with 36 that year.

Checking home run figures can be a fascinating exercise; you never know what you might find. My favorite: Andruw Jones, who was so bad this year that he batted only 237 times for the Dodgers and hit only 3 home runs, led the majors in 2005, only three years ago, with 51 homers.

It’s not that Jones had hit only a handful of homers prior to 2005; he hit 227 in the previous seven seasons, with 36 being his top total. But it seemed incongruous for him suddenly to join the 50-homer platoon. He followed that performance by hitting 41 and 26, then faded into this year’s abysmal effort.

Even more incongruous, though, was Brady Anderson’s production of 50 in 1996. Anderson had hit a total of 62 homers in the previous four years, with a high of 21, and hit 79 in the subsequent four seasons, with a high of 24.

Since Jones’ 51, Howard has reached the 50 plateau with 58, David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez have each hit 54 and Prince Fielder whacked 50.

Howard’s 58 in 2006 came closest to the orgy of home runs Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds clubbed in the 1998-2001 period. Prior to that period, only two players had hit 60 or more home runs – Roger Maris and Babe Ruth – but Sammy Sosa did it three times in five years.

That period was loaded with performance-enhancing substances, but we all were oblivious to the obvious – news media, baseball officials, fans.  

Unlike Bonds, Sosa and McGwire, Rodriguez has primarily escaped accusations of steroids use. Jose Canseco has tried hard to implicate Rodriguez, but he lacked even the kind of circumstantial evidence that has buried Bonds, Sosa and McGwire. 

Rodriguez is viewed as having an excellent chance to eclipse Bonds as the all-time home run hitter. If Rodriguez were to hit the same number of homers the next five seasons as he has the past five (208), he would be one home run short of Bonds’ total of 762.

But we stray from the subject we started with – major league home runs and runs.

Batters hit an average of 2.01 home runs a game this season, down from 2.04 in 2007, which is a negligible decline but is the closest the home run average has been to dropping under 2 a game since the average went over 2 in 1994. But this is not a sudden development. The average was 2.06 in 2005, and it fell from 2.34 in 2000 to 2.25 and then to 2.09 in 2002.

Runs decreased in those seasons from 10.28 a game to 9.55 to 9.24 in 2002. In the six seasons since, the runs scored average has gone up three times and down three times, including the last two seasons, from 9.72 to 9.59 to 9.30 this year.

In another development, hitters continued striking out more, raising the average for the third straight season. It has gone from 12.61 strikeouts a game in 2005 to 13.03 to 13.24 to 13.54 this year.  

Striking a Record

Ryan Howard, the burly Philadelphia slugger, had the lead when the final month of the season began and still held it midway through September. But then Mark Reynolds, Arizona’s young third baseman, made his move.

In an eight-game span Reynolds struck out 14 times, snatched the lead from Howard and went on to set a major league record by finishing the season with 204 strikeouts, the first player ever to strike out 200 times in a season.

Howard, who in those eight games struck out only five times, ended the season with 199, the same total he had last year when he set the record that Reynolds broke.

Instead of striking out in September, Howard drove in runs, propelling the Phillies into the playoffs. In 25 games, Howard struck out  21 times and drove in 32 runs, marking the only month in which he had more runs batted in than strikeouts.

Reynolds led the Diamondbacks with 97 r.b.i., but in September, when the team squandered its nearly season-long division lead, he struck out 33 times and drove in 7 runs.

Can You Top This?

When Johan Santana pitched a three-hit shutout on the next-to-last day of the season and kept the Mets in the running for a post-season spot, it was one of the best pitching performances in recent years. Santana was pitching against the Marlins on three days’ rest instead of the customary four and had thrown a season-high 125 pitches in his previous start.

But the next day CC Sabathia outdid Santana in their game of can you top this. Making his third successive start on three days’ rest, Sabathia allowed the Cubs only four hits and an unearned run and pitched the Brewers into the post-season.

However, when Sabathia faced the Phillies in Game 2 of their division series on three days’ rest, he resembled the CC of the 2007 post-season, not the CC of the last week of the 2008 regular season.

In three post-season starts for the Indians last year Sabathia gave up 15 runs in 15 1/3 innings. This time he lasted only 3 2/3 innings, threw 98 pitches and gave up all five runs in a 5-2 loss. 

Player Tells Agent What To Do

With four consecutive losing seasons and losing records in five of seven major league seasons, Kyle Lohse did not make an attractive free agent last winter, certainly not the kind his agent liked to dangle in front of teams. But when teams weren’t offering the type of contract Scott Boras sought, he went to Plan B: sign a one-year contract, have a good season, then try the free agent game again.

Lohse followed Boras’ script perfectly. Well after other pitchers were in spring camps, he signed a one-year contract with St. Louis for a $4.25 million salary. Then he produced a 15-6 record, best among Cardinals’ pitchers, and last week signed a new contract with the Cardinals for four years and $41 million.

Boras couldn’t have planned it any more perfectly. Well, he actually didn’t plan it the way it turned out, but this was one instance where the client and not the agent dictated developments.

Usually, Boras holds out for every last dollar from a prospective employer for his player. Lohse, though, wanted to stay in St. Louis and directed Boras to negotiate a contract with the Cardinals. Boras was certain Lohse could have gained a more lucrative contract – more years, more money — had he waited until next month and become a free agent, but Lohse wasn’t going anywhere.

The loss in commission Boras suffered will not affect his lifestyle.

The Yankees Are Ready to Spend

Last winter the Yankees eschewed a trade for Johan Santana because they didn’t want to give up a young pitcher, Phil Hughes or Ian Kennedy, and their young center fielder, Melky Cabrera. Hughes and Kennedy wound up injured and unable to win a game between them when healthy, and Cabrera wound up back in the minor leagues.

General manager Brian Cashman got a new contract – three years for more than $6 million – in spite of that mistake and others, and he won’t repeat the mistake this winter. That is, he won’t have to repeat it.

The Yankees, who need starting pitchers, can pursue them without having to give up any of their young players. Unlike last winter, the free-agent market will feature a number of attractive pitchers: CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Derek Lowe, Jon Garland, Oliver Perez.

The Yankees have made it known they have a lot of money to spend, with as much as $90 million coming off their $200-plus million payroll, and they will spend it. They were embarrassed not to make the post-season in their final season at the old Yankee Stadium, and they don’t want to be embarrassed to miss out in their first year in the new Yankee Stadium.

In addition, the Yankees feel they have been supporting other teams with their revenue sharing payments, which this year will amount to well over $100 million, and they have grown tired of watching other teams improving themselves with Yankees dollars. This winter the Yankees plan to use their money to improve themselves.