1.3 Big Scoring, Little Details
After two one-run affairs to start the series, the third game was a straight-up blowout: Oakland Ballers 4, Glacier Range Riders 15. Things seemed out of kilter from the jump, with a long weather delay and Flosports (the streaming host) going down. Glacier fans probably enjoyed watching their first win of the season, and it’s not often you see a team rack up four triples in one game, but that was about it as far as excitement goes. As such, I thought I’d focus on two little details — they didn’t impact the result at all, but do illustrate how there’s always something to watch for, even if your team is down double digits.
The first Glacier batter in the bottom of the third bounced a hard chopper back to the mound where Ballers pitcher Zach St. Pierre managed to knock it down. He chased it down near the infield dirt and winged what look to be a slider past the first baseman, though even an on-target throw would have been late. The runner, though, was unaware of the errant throw as he slowed down past first base. When he did turn back to the infield, he turned to his left, and by that point the Ballers had tracked down the ball. A video clip of the play is embedded below.
Here’s the problem with that: if you’re the batter/runner, and the throw goes to first base, you should always take a look over your right shoulder immediately after you cross the base. Why? So you’ll know if the ball gets by the first baseman (or whomever is covering first). Even if you don’t spot the ball itself, the reaction of the fielders/fans/first base coach will tip you off. Of course there’s still a decision to be made, about whether to try for second or not, but the sooner you know the ball is loose, the better your chances of advancing. Plus, as long as you wait until you’re past the bag to look, there’s no downside to it.
In the above example, the Range Riders runner was clearly unaware that the throw had gotten by the first baseman until he had slowed up to a complete stop and turned around (and even then he turned the wrong direction, toward left field rather than toward foul territory). So whatever his chances might have been of advancing (probably not great in this instance), he forfeited them.
That’s the kind of thing that, for a given player, might end up making a difference only once or twice per season. But if the whole team is in the habit of doing that, it’s not out of the question that it might net you an additional win per season. More importantly, the attention to detail it fosters is a state of mind that can pay off in many other ways in baseball. Maybe we’ll get a chance to talk about some of those other ways in future blog posts.
I promised two details, and the second one took place in between pitches. At one point in the game — I forget when, maybe the fifth inning? — a pitch caught the Ballers catcher Tyler Lozano on the thigh. Might have been a foul tip, or just a bad bounce, but it stung him, though not so much that anyone had to come out and check on him or anything. It was at that moment that home plate umpire Josh Garner decided that home plate needed some clean up. He dusted it off with some care, inspected his work, then touched up a few spots he missed before resuming play.
The kicker? The entire playing field is artificial turf; the ‘dirt’ is just brown-colored turf. Now, there’s still the little pebbly stuff that can get on home plate, so the cleanup job might not have been a complete put-on. But I’m confident that Garner, who otherwise kept the game moving along at a rapid clip, was motivated less by a dirty home plate and more by extending a little extra time for Lozano to recover from taking a ball in the thigh, something that umpires can certainly sympathize with. That obviously made no difference to the game, will not show up in the box score or any advanced analytics, and likely went unnoticed by almost everyone. But I appreciated the silent courtesy the umpire extended as part of the brotherhood of those stationed behind home plate, and I bet Lozano did as well.
Baseball offers a wealth of interesting details … a handy thing when it’s 15 to 4 on a cold Montana night.