S: F Sanchez
I'm going to have to verify this, but I'm going to go with what I think I'm seeing here -- Rowand led off the game with a double, and while still in the first inning, he was sacrificed to 3rd by Freddy Sanchez?
Is that what things have come to already, that Bruce Bochy feels he should essentially sabotage his team's chances at a big inning and go for a single run at the beginning of a game?
Let's see what we have here:
- Giants having a ton of difficulty scoring
- Bruce Bochy not having much confidence that his team can put up a crooked number
#1 is obviously true, and if #2 is, also -- Bochy thinking really is the team doesn't have much chance to score in bunches right now -- I don't blame him.
But here's the deal...if you don't think the team can get the hits necessary to put up a big inning, what faith do you have that the single run you're going for in the first inning is going to hold up? It usually takes more than one run to win a ballgame the vast majority of the time, which is precisely why you this shouldn't be done in the 1st inning of a ballgame...while the entire game is an unknown, the objective to be to score as much as possible, and giving away outs in the first inning is in direct contrast to that.
Plus, there's never a guarantee the sacrifice will work, and of course no guarantee you'll score that one run anway...which is exactly what ended up happening.
Hey, it's not to say a team has never put up a crooked number when sacrificing in the same inning, either, but it's just a lot less likely when you give up outs. The Giants are making enough outs on their own without Bochy making more for them.
1) Would you be saying the same thing if Torres was in the lineup?
ReplyDeleteB) Are you forgetting how successful the Giants are when they score first?
4) Freddy Sanchez bunts on his own a lot. I wouldn't always put that on Boch.
Would I be saying it's a dumb move to sacrifice bunt in the 1st inning if it were Torres on base instead of Rowand? Not sure if that's what you're asking, but if it is, then no doubt -- it's still a silly move, and it always is. Doing those types of things with the pitcher looming a couple of batters away is fine...you want to try and squeeze that run across before the pitcher comes up to bat.
ReplyDeleteBut in the first inning...no, it never makes sense. And lest we forget, even if the Giants scored that one run, remember -- the Nationals scored two runs. Still a loss.
As to the last item, yes, that's possible, and why I put the bit about verifying it in bold, because I was only able to surmise what happened via the boxscore. Regardless of how it came about, I still think it was silly.