It’s not so easy. With the potential winning run at third base and less than 2 outs, the infielders will play in (i.e., very shallow) so they can have a better shot at throwing out the runner trying to score. Nobody is going to try to bunt in this situation, as the odds of it working are very low.
If you have a good bunter, the suicide squeeze will work even if the infield is drawn in.
I’m reaching ‘Get off my lawn!’ status but why the hell has MLB made the All Star game voting so confusing with all the multiple rounds?
Holy crap - that was last night, several hours after jsc asked about suicide squeezes!
I don’t get it either, and so I have to assume they think it’ll make it more interesting by making you want to vote again.
For instance, in the AL first base race, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. got 51% of all the votes; no one else even got ten percent. So, under the old system, that means the race is over already. But now they can promote that it’s an all new race!!!1! with Guerrero, Yuli Gurriel and Jose Abreu starting from zero again.
I don’t think anyone will really care, though.
It’s hard to care about the All Star Game any more. It was a bigger deal when it gave you the chance to see the stars from the other league, but now with interleague play and easy availability of highlights, that’s a thing of the past.
The All Star game has lost a lot of appeal for me. The voting is a joke, I wish it was limited to say the 3 top vote getters in each league voted by fans regardless of position and the manager picks the rest. But still of all the sports, the baseball All Star is the only one that is played like a real game. In the other 3 sports, the game looks little like a regular game with the lack of intensity and defense.
I’m glad they took away the nonsense of having this game determine home field for the World Series. They hyped the living shit out of it when it came out but really the players didn’t give two shits about it. So it means nothing, as it should.
I miss getting the paper All-Star Game ballots at baseball games. It was fun using the golf pencil to punch out the little chads with the pictures of the baseballs on them. Voting online just isn’t the same, and now with this multiple rounds crap, I just can’t be assed to do it.
Yeah, I won’t vote in the ASG but I’ll watch it. It’s not must see TV for me like it was when I was younger. And, I’ll be skipping the Home Run Derby, overhyped to death.
I never minded that. It certainly doesn’t make any less sense than home field being determined by whether the year is even or odd numbered, which is how they did it before, and determining it by record in a league with an unbalanced schedule makes just as little sense.
I like fan voting for the ASG in principle because
- All true honor comes from fans. We’re the ones who make all this matter at all. and
- Involving the fans is a good idea.
But this multiple round thing is pointless, and the system still encourages ballot stuffing.
Bill JAmes came up with a great solution back when you still had to vote at the ballpark; rather than going by vote totals, just divvy it up by ballpark. If Joe Slugger of the Orioles finished first in Baltimore he got ten points, no matter if he won it by a zillion votes or one vote. If he finished in second place in Toronto he got seven points, or whatever. That way if the fans in one park really stuffed the ballot boxes, it made no difference; you can only get ten points for first place, seven for second, etc., and the size of the market didn’t matter; it’s ten points in New York, or ten points in Milwaukee. A ridiculous candidate who won his home ballpark by ballot stuffing wasn’t going to get any points anywhere else so he wasn’t getting elected. The votes of fans who just automatically vote a straight home team ticket would cancel out. Someone widely respected, a REAL star like George Brett or Gary Carter, was going to get elected even if the fans in one market made a ballot stuffing effort, because Brett or Carter would finish high up in every ballpark; they’d always be second or third at worst and might even win a few ballparks they didn’t play in.
But with the Internet how the hell do you do that?
I’d like them to give one ballot to every fan at the turnstiles and go back to mail in ballots. That way if you want to stuff the ballot box, you need to go to a lot of games or spend money on postage. I wish they’d keep online votes out of the mix.
Last night, the Cubs scored two runs in the top of the 7th to tie their game against the Brewers at 4. Then, in the bottom of the 8th, the Cubs’ bullpen imploded, and gave up 10 earned runs, losing the game, and leaving the Cubs four games behind Milwaukee.
In Angels-related news:
- Mike Trout, who’s been out with a calf injury since mid-May, was moved to the 60-day IL yesterday, and will now be out until after the All-Star break, though the team says that he’s recovering, and hit in a batting cage yesterday for the first time since his injury.
- The family of former Angels pitcher Tylor Skaggs, who died two years ago in a drug-related incident, is suing the Angels, and two former team employees, for negligence related to Skaggs’ death.
It’s always about the money
Considering his dealer was a team employee and other members of the team had to notice he was strung out and had some duty to care for him I’m not surprised. I think this will be interesting to see what the legal system believes the duty actually is for the medical professionals who see you day in and day out.
Kyle Schwarber with yet another lead off home run. He might be the hottest hitter I’ve ever seen in my years of following baseball
And now Ohtani homers, this season hasn’t been perfect but damn it’s been fun.
The Mariners are 41-39, while having allowed FORTY-NINE more runs than they’ve scored.
Shohei Ohtani leads the league in HRs and triples, a feat not done since Jim Rice in 1978. I can’t remember how good Rice’s slider was, but I think it was slightly below average…
The other side of this are the Marlins*, who have outscored their opponents by sixteen runs and are somehow 33-45.
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- My all time favorite Final Jeopardy! clue: “These are the only two Major League teams with nicknames that start with the same three letters; one might pursue the other.”
And the Angels have a losing record. Having wasted most of Mike Trout’s career, they are now embarking on a program of wasting Ohtani’s.
For those with an Athletic subscription, there’s a really fantastic article today about Ohtani by Rustin Dodd.
IIRC, Shohei is under contract through next year. I wonder if he’ll stay loyal in the face of crushing suck-i-tude like Trout did or if he’ll go ring-hunting with an actually competitive franchise. I would hope the latter, it’s a damn shame that Trout made the (IMHO) wrong call there.