A lot can be said about the sorry state of baseball these days. They’ve cleverly tried to disguise it as an exciting game…except it isn’t. There is something to be said for the heroic home run that wins the game. There is much less to be said for multiple home runs that score every run of the game. And this has become far too apparent in MLB this year, right up to the World Series.
So big surprise, Game 4 and Justin Turner (a favorite of mine) becomes the first player in MLB history to hit first inning home runs in two straight World Series games. And then Seager hits one in the 3rd. And then Arozarena for the Rays in the 4th – his 9th in the post-season, which is a record (no surprise). The game redeemed itself with its ending, but we can’t just keep counting on the long ball. It’s boring.
And that brings me to something I saw in the 8th inning of that game – the Jiman Choi at bat. Choi is a lefty with some pop in his bat. He’s also predictable enough in his hitting that the Dodgers play the shift on him, moving Turner over from 3rd base to the right side of the diamond, leaving only Seager on the left at shortstop.
Let me start with a spoiler: Choi ended the at bat on first base after drawing a 4-pitch walk. What encouraged me was his approach to the first two pitches. With the shift on, Choi squared to bunt. I’m sure it got into the pitcher’s head, because like I said, it only took two more pitches to put Choi on first base.
And this is baseball. You get on base. You move over into scoring position. A base hit brings in a run. But this doesn’t seem to be the way they want to do it anymore. It’s all about the home run cut – give it everything you’ve got with a slight upswing. Less likely to get a hit, but when you do make contact, more likely to put it over the wall. Unfortunately, this hitting strategy more than likely means it’s either a home run or an out. Boring.
What Jiman Choi did was interesting. It was actually exciting. The Dodgers had to change something. Here they had three players on the right side of the diamond and the batter was trying to put a bunt down to the left. Here’s something that takes more thought than playing the percentages – because what are the percentages for Jiman Choi getting on base by bunting it to the left? No one really knows. And here’s another problem that baseball has had for a long time – they don’t have the sense to work on their bunting to the point that other teams have to respect it and make it a part of their strategies.
If I were a manager, I’d make it known throughout the league that I will bunt my players to first base as long as opposing teams play the shift. The percentages are there if they’d only take the time to work on it and make it a regular part of the game.
Like getting a man on, moving him over, and scoring the run used to be.