Red Sox-Orioles, May 5. Fifth inning. The O's first three hitters go single-triple-single, they score twice, they take the lead. They have all the momentum in the world, and their 2-3-4 hitters coming up with no body out. Sam Perlozzo calls HAR with Melvin Mora up (who had singled sharply in his last AB). He swings through an eye-high strike and Brandon Fahey is easily thrown out at second.
Why? Why in the world? It's such a stupid, stupid play, especially when you're knocking the opposing pitcher around, and freaking Miguel Tejada is coming up in a second.
I'm just saying. It's a stupid thing to do, and the only reason anybody does it is that they've been doing it for like 100 years. It's like a "thing" that exists, that managers can do, to "keep the pressure on" and "be aggressive" and all of those meaningless cliches. And when it works perfectly, like one out of every twenty times (anecdotally), it looks really pretty and the crowd goes crazy and everyone praises the manager.
They should stop doing it. The end.
Today in the fourth inning, with a 6-1 lead, no outs, Robby Cano on first and a 2-0 count on Bernie Williams, Joe Torre (Larry Bowa?) called a hit-and-run. Williams swung at what would have probably been ball three, and hit a thirty-hopper to the exact spot where second baseman Mark DeRosa had been standing before covering second on the steal attempt. Cano went to third.
ReplyDeleteFor the Yankee announcers, this was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen.
The inning, to that point, had gone walk-single-HR-single. Robinson Tejada was dead in the water. Even though Bernie is struggling, he still has a great eye. Hit-and-run is a terrible call.
The fact that it worked does not in any way invalidate my assertion.
The end.