Couldn't sleep so I threw $10 down on the Giants/Diamondbacks game. Top 8th and the Giants get their leadoff man on first with the 9th place hitter coming up. Now in any baseball I know, that guy bunts and sacrifices the guy to second to score 1 run that late in the game with your 9th place hitter. Nope. Swings for the fences and grounds into an inning killing double play.
I don't understand baseball anymore
- Thread starter Glenn's take
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Watching Reds last night & EDLC made error on ground ball because he tried to field it with ball off to left glove side & it bounced over glove vs. getting in front of it as he could have. Announcer said that is now the preferred fielding method being taught - try to take ball off to glove side.
Where the h did that come from? Never before heard of that. And don't buy it. BTW, EDLC leads the league in errors.
Where the h did that come from? Never before heard of that. And don't buy it. BTW, EDLC leads the league in errors.
Not bunting the 2nd base ghost runner over in extra innings with the 6-9 batters up has baffled me since the rule began.
As Stan Musial said, "I look for the baseball, then I knock the sh!t out of it."
It's all analytics. Both basketball and baseball are ruled by analytics to the detriment of what I deem common sense. In the situation you posted, the 9th place hitter is at the bottom of the order for a reason - he ain't that good. I would bet a lot of money that most 9th place hitters are more likely to hit into a DP than hit a 2-run homer by a wide margin. One out, man on 2nd also changes how the pitcher thinks, the defense has to adjust, etc. Very few teams look to manufacture a single run anymore - it's all about hitting a 500' HR. Hence, fewer walks, more K's, fewer guys hitting .320+, fewer SBs, high pitch counts to each batter, etc. It's all about launch angles and hitting dingers.
I think most would agree Ted Williams is one of the top 2 or 3 hitters in baseball history. He wrote a book called "The Science of Hitting." It should be required reading for all serious baseball players. He doesn't call it launch angle, but he talks about the angle of pitches as they relate to the angle of your swing. It is a whole book, so I can't condense it down here, but a pitcher is standing on a raised mound. A pitcher probably releases the ball around shoulder height. The pitch must angle down to hit the strike zone. That means the angle of the swing that gives you the largest area to hit the ball solidly is a swing that is on the same angle as the pitch. The book is the equivalent of a college text book.
Lol... this makes me so mad because my stupid high school baseball coach got it in his head that the best hit for a righty is a ground ball to 2nd base. I'm not joking. If it was middle to on the outside corner, he wanted us to hit the ball the other way on the ground. We worked on it over and over and over. To be fair to him, we won back to back state championships. But it was basically due to having two high school versions of Greg Maddux on the mound who went to play in college rather than being able to rake.
I'm not going to mention the name as I don't want to embarrass him, but many years ago we had a guy playing first base on our slow pitch team. He was a high school baseball coach who later made the Ky baseball HOF. He was a joke and the worst player on the team. Most people were laughing at him behind his back.
My coach played football for UK. His son played in the minors. Great athlete and good OC for the football team. But he wasn’t a great hitting coach lol.
I could get any hitting coach fired no matter how good they were.
But odds of a single are much greater (for most hitters) than a HR. A typical 9th batter may hit a HR 1 in 40 AB, but get a single (or better) from that lead off hitter may be a 1 in 3.4 AB event. Over 10 times more likely.
Most of these guys can’t bunt anymore so that probably plays into it.
You can same the same about football and some of the nutty decisions on extra points late in the game.
I can't understand why David Bell will pull a pitcher that just pitched a perfect inning for another pitcher. You would think any pitcher would be good for two innings. And why Diaz is made out to be this great closer, I'll never understand. He's good for at least one walk usually the first batter.
Baseball is the hardest sport to make money on for me. I've been trying to match my paycheck every week and 2 or 3 team parley with a 100 on it a couple times a week. My 1 dollar tickets hardly ever climb to cash outs worth anything. Play Phillies and Yankees with a 3rd team that's at home that day.
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