I Don't Want Him To Beat Me

  What a crazy between Tampa Bay and Boston! First there was that blown call by the home plate umpire that denied the tying Red Sox run. Jose Molina is regarded as great at framing pitches – he seemingly can also frame tags.

 Then in the bottom of the ninth, after Dustin Pedroia (aka ‘Mini Jason Statham’) had grounded the Sox we’re 2 out with the tying run on second and first base empty. Joe Maddon decides to intentionally walk David Ortiz and pitch to Mike Napoli. This put the winning run on first – and a quick runner to boot (Ortiz having been pinch run for).

 Ortiz against a righty (Fernando Rodney) stood a much better chance of plating the tying run than Napoli (a righty) so it did increase the chances of Rodney closing out that inning. But walking Ortiz put the winning run on, meaning a double would have a high chance of getting that winning run home (a fast runner in Iglesias and with 2 outs he would be going on contact). Ortiz to walk-off would’ve needed a homer – against righties this year he’s hit 15 HR in 243 plate appearances. ‘Na-po-li’ in 284 PA has only 11 homers, but also 2 triples and 19 doubles as well. I can’t see how this move increased Tampa’s chance of winning, although I’ll leave the exact calculation to Fangraphs and the like.

 Maddon has a history of this – a few years back (2008) when playing against the Rangers he intentionally walked in a run by walking Josh Hamilton (who was awesome back then) with the bases loaded to make it 7-4 and bring the winning to the plate in Marlon Byrd. Byrd was no Hamilton but was having a good year and had hit a walk-off grand slam a week before AFAIK. And to tie the game he only needed a double (which would likely do it), while Hamilton needed a home run. Byrd hit 42 extra-base hits (doubles, triples, homers) compared to Hamilton hitting 32 homers (in 50% more AB’s).

 One of the things the Sox commentators said was that he done it because ‘he didn’t want Ortiz to beat him’. Which is a silly thing in my mind – how crazy is that? If you think about I’d much rather get beaten by the better player – I mean, given the choice I’d much rather get beaten by Miguel Cabrera than by Yuniesky Betnacourt. Although admittedly Maddon