Quick Baseball Rant

Pardon me for sliding into a bit of baseball minutiae for a moment, but Trey Hillman, the manager of the Kansas City Royals, just did something that I believe to be really stupid.  He just ordered a sacrifice bunt.

With runners on first and second and no one out.

In the second inning.

With a 4-1 lead.

With his #2 hitter at the plate.

To leave an open base for his best hitter, who will now be intentionally walked.

Almost certainly setting up a double play to end the inning.

With a favorable matchup of a righty hitter facing a lefty pitcher.

Who has a 6.29 ERA.

And is 43-years old.

And has given up 6 hits in 9 Royals’ at bats.

Including one to woeful, .170-hitting, Tony Pena, who singled two batters earlier.

On an 0-2 pitch.

Now, in real life, the next guy up, Billy Butler, really did get walked, one of those unintentional intentional walks, loading the bases and setting up the double play, as predicted.  However, the pitcher in question, Kenny Rogers, turned out to be so bad today that he then walked the next guy too, forcing in a run and making the score 5-1.  The next guy made an out, but on a wicked line drive that happened to be right at the third baseman.  In other words, Hillman gave away an out to a guy who hasn’t proven that he can get anyone out all by himself unless the Royals managed to hit the ball directly at one of his defenders.  A guy who has given up a hit or walk to 9 of the first 13 batters he faced. 

All of which makes the move even more inexcusable.

Why do baseball managers have such a sick fascination with a play that has been proven, over and over again, to reduce their teams’ chances of scoring runs?  If we look at this chart, for instance, Hillman willfully decided to swap a scenario where his team was likely to score 1.573 runs in that inning for a scenario where his team was likely to score 1.467 runs.  Anyone care to give me a reasonable explanation for that?  

Anyone? 

Please?