In baseball, a first-pitch strike is when the pitcher throws a strike to the batter during the first pitch of the at bat. Statistics indicate that throwing a strike on the first pitch allows the pitcher to gain an advantage in the at bat, limiting the hitter's chance of getting on base. Importance With the continued interest and development of statistics in the game of baseball, first-pitch strikes have been under the microscope of many fans and sabermetricians (those who study the game based on evidence, mainly stats that measure game activity). Many studies have proven that the first pitch in the at bat is the most important one. And according to Craig Burley's 2004 study in The Hardball Times, throwing a strike on a 0-0 count could potentially save over 12,000 runs scored in a single Major League Baseball season. In Burley's study, he used stats from the 2003 MLB season. He found that when a pitcher throws a strike on the first pitch of the at bat, hitters collected a .261 batting average. But if the first pitch was a ball, their batting average jumped to .280, a substantial difference. From Burley, "Let's imagine that we have two pitchers, both of whom are otherwise perfectly average but one of whom always throws a strike on the first pitch, while the other always throws a ball. The first pitcher, the "strike one" pitcher, has an expected ERA (earned run average) of about 3.60. The second one, the otherwise perfectly average one who always throws a ball on pitch one, has an expected ERA of about 5.50. He'll also pitch about 12% fewer innings (without taking into account the higher pitch counts that would result from starting 1-0)." While there are some players in the game who are notorious for swinging at the first pitch, Burley's study proved that there is little risk in jumping ahead early in the count. Less than 8 percent of first-pitch strikes turn into base hits. After that it becomes even more difficult for the hitter. Once a pitcher gets to a 0-1 count, hitters hit just .239 against him from there on out. Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins franchise has taken the idea of command and first-pitch strikes to a new level. Considered a small-market team, the Twins needed to find any advantage they could to keep pace with the larger franchises. Twins pitchers