Point: Theres no reason we should ever see a walk-off triple.
Jerseys China NFL .If the batter can reach
third safely, it means the runner ahead of him -- the one representing the
game-ending run -- already has left third base, presumably scored and ended the
game. The batters run is meaningless. There is no reward for stretching a double
into a triple when the game is over.Meanwhile, the risk is minimal but existent:
The batter might be thrown out at third base before the winning run scores. He
might stumble, trip or get lost. Or the lead runner, the one who represents the
game-ending run ahead of him, might be forced to retreat to third base, either
by stumbling, tripping, getting lost or simply reassessing his plan. In that
event, the batter now will have prohibited him from returning to safety.In
stretching a double into a pointless triple, the batter has simultaneously
opened up a second front by which his team can be attacked and removed the lead
runners lone option for retreat. It is like trying to block a buzzer-beating
3-pointer when youre up by four. It is like a victorious quarterback trying to
get yardage when taking a knee will expire the clock. It is an absurd act to go
to third base in a walk-off situation.Counterpoint: But they happen anyway. What
gives?There were four walk-off triples in 2016. One of the four was a clear
exception to our point: Josh Harrison hit a triple and advanced home with the
winning run on a throwing error. This wasnt a walk-off triple, but a walk-off
triple plus a one-base error. It is exempt. As to why the other three happened,
we are prepared to deliver answers. Two answers apiece, in fact.1. Jay Bruce
hits a walk-off triple for the Reds, April 10.0:06: The ball lands down the
right-field line. The Pirates right fielder, Gregory Polanco, is roughly 1
million miles from it.0:08: [Brandon] Phillips on his way to third! Bruce,
rounding first, glances over to see Phillips progress, about 120 feet ahead of
Bruce. Bruce then looks back to right field, sees the location of the ball and
Polanco, and keeps running. As Phillips gets to within 30 or so feet of scoring,
Bruce rounds second and heads to third.0:14: Phillips touches home plate with
the winning run. The throw home is about 40 feet away and bounces in mockingly.
Catcher Chris Stewart?flips the incoming ball away in disgust.0:16 or so: Bruce
touches third base, then he starts running back toward second to be swallowed up
by teammates.Explanation 1: One of my favorite things about old-timey baseball
-- real old-timey, back in the 1800s -- is that they played the bottom of the
ninth inning no matter what. It wasnt how it is now, where the home team only
bats if it needs to. What were those unnecessary bottom halves like, I often
wonder. Was everybody still trying? Did the fans stick around to see it? Did the
coachs son get to pitch? We never play that superfluous half-inning anymore
because we all pretty much consider the point of baseball to be winning the
game. Baseball exists to deliver a definitive victory or defeat.It is a
reflection of a winner-take-all culture: Once youve won, youve already taken
all, and once youve lost, there is nothing left to take, so we all go home. But
when you play out the bottom of the ninth after the game has been decided, youre
saying something matters about baseball even when a win is not on the line.
Youre saying there is beauty and meaning inherent in baseball play, and that it
means more than an opportunity to declare somebody the winner. You play, and you
play hard, because baseball played hard, by its very nature, no matter the
stakes, adds to the gross product of the sport.Jay Bruce went to third because a
baseball player playing hard goes to third. Not all artists paint for fame and
commissions. Some paint to make something beautiful.Explanation 2: Phillips was
safe by plenty, but there was, at least, a nominal play at the plate. There was
only one out. If Phillips had been thrown out, Bruce would have represented the
winning run, and there would have been only two men out. By going to third,
Bruce increased his teams chances of winning from 61 percent to 68 percent in
the rare case where Phillips gets thrown out. Bruce determined this conditional
advantage to be greater than the likelihood of his disrupting Phillips attempts
at scoring on his own. He was still playing to win.2. Stephen Drew hits a
walk-off triple for the Nationals, July 23.0:08: The ball lands at the wall in
right-center field. There is one out.0:10: Padres center fielder Travis
Jankowski picks it up and fires it toward his cutoff man, Ryan Schimpf.0:11: You
check: Jankowski and Schimpf are definitely real people.0:12: Schimpf turns
around and readies to throw. Drew is just circling second base; hell be out by
forever if Schimpf throws to third, though Anthony Rendon would score the
winning run. Wil Myers, the second cutoff man, stationed between Schimpf and
home plate, points toward third.0:13: Schimpf throws toward home instead.
On-deck hitter Ben Revere, anticipating the winning run scoring, is already in
the field of play, ready to mob Stephen Drew.0:14: Rendon scores, ending the
game. Drew, roughly 35 feet from third base, still is pumping his arms and
running hard.Explanation 3: It is, basically, irrational to go to third base if
youre Drew. What Drew is banking on, though, is that the other team is as
capable of acting irrationally as he might be, and that potential consequences
of his irrational choice are far less costly than the potential consequences of
the Padres irrational choice would be gainsome.Here, we see it almost happen:
Myers, taking the role of field captain, points to third base and directs
Schimpf to throw it there. This would be hilarious, of course. Drew as a runner
doesnt matter (the premise of this inquiry!), and there is almost no chance that
theyll tag him out before Rendon crosses home plate and ends the game. And yet:
Theres Myers, worried about the meaningless trail runner, instead of the winning
run, and trying to make his teammate do something ridiculous.Players know that
they are fallible and they make mental errors. They know, just as confidently,
that their opponents are fallible and will make mental errors. Drew, in this
instance, gives the Padres the opportunity to make a mental error. He was doing
game theory.Explanation 4: A few years ago, I wrote about Roy Halladays failure
to complete a single game in 2012. Before that, Halladays complete games were a
singular achievement: He had more complete games over the course of a decade
than entire franchises. He had led the league in complete games in each of the
previous five seasons, and he had bold ink in that category in seven of the
previous nine seasons. He had eight complete games the season before. Then,
suddenly, he had none. I argued at the time that Halladays lack of complete
games was more than an odd blip, or even a typical decline, but rather the
canary in the coal mine of his career. It represented a cliff that he had fallen
off; he was a man suddenly old. The next year, Halladay had a 6.82 ERA and never
pitched again.Stephen Drew was very good at many things in his long career, but
he was especially notable for hitting triples. He wasnt that fast, but he had a
knack for finding gaps, corners and 12-plus seconds for uninterrupted running.
From 2008 to 2010, he led all major leaguers with 35 triples, hitting 11 or more
in each of the three seasons. Drew is old now, and hes not very good at many
things. This is apparent in all of his stats, and in the contracts he gets, and
in the role he plays (he was pinch-hitting in this game), but perhaps nothing
conveys his age and his decline like his triples totals:2013: 8 2014: 1 2015:
1Before this swing in this game, he had no triples in 2016. When the day comes
that Stephen Drew cant hit even one triple, he might cease to be Stephen Drew.
He is an exposed popsicle that, in the five minutes you ignore it, has turned
into a stick. That triple wasnt just a triple but an entire career fighting for
one more spring training invite. So he went for it. He just ... ran.And he made
it. Notably, if you search for walk-off triples on MLB.coms highlights, this
play is not returned.But thankfully -- for Drew -- baseballs official records
are not kept in highlight-video metadata. Baseballs Rule 9.06 (f) guarantees his
extra base went into the record books:The official scorer shall credit the
batter with a base touched in the natural course of play, even if the winning
run has scored moments before on the same play. For example, the score is tied
in the bottom of the ninth inning with a runner on second base and the batter
hits a ball to the outfield that falls for a base hit. The runner scores after
the batter has touched first base and continued on to second base but shortly
before the batter-runner reaches second base. If the batter-runner reaches
second base, the official scorer shall credit the batter with a two-base hit.If
he had been even one step past second base when Rendon crossed home plate and
ended the game, he would have been allowed to complete the play, and the triple
would have counted. He rounded second and saw nothing in his way. In a sense,
Drew found the worlds emptiest highway, and he rode it. All night long.3. Derek
Dietrich hits a walk-off triple for the Marlins, July 31.0:09: The ball lands in
or around the glove of Cardinals center fielder Tommy Pham.0:10: Now its loose,
rolling all the way to the left-field wall. Nobody is close to the ball. This
play is over the second it gets past Pham.0:14: Adeiny Hechavarria, representing
the winning run, lopes casually down the third-base line. He will score easily.
Its not clear a Cardinal will ever even pick up the ball.0:19: Dietrich is
mobbed by his teammates in foul territory past the third-base bag. They punch
him, douse him with water and strip his jersey off.0:45: You notice, for the
first time, what amazing shape Dietrich is in. Wow, you say, without any
particular intent.Explanation 5: Two important things to know about on-field
celebrations. The first is that the mob is going after the batter who drives in
the winning run, not the runner who scores, in pretty much all cases. The second
is that these celebrations are performative. There was a long period of baseball
history in which even teams winning the World Series didnt celebrate on the
field. They just jogged into the dugout and shook hands with one another. But
once television became the sports primary broadcast medium, players began to
celebrate in ways that fans expected them to: glove-throwing,
teammate-assaulting, dogpiles, etc. They began to perform.So in one sense, the
game-winning batters role ends the moment he reaches first base safely. In
another, though, his role goes on long after the run scores. A camera will be
isolated on him to capture his raised arms, his fist pumps, and, eventually, his
disappearance under a flood of teammates. So what we see from Dietrich is
pointless to the game but very important to the show. He keeps running partly
because a triple is more exciting than a double, and partly because, with his
team in the third-base dugout, he is really running to join them in merriment as
they run to join him in merriment. For this latter detail, the existence of
third base is irrelevant, a vestigial prop that he happens to pass on his way to
the party. Third base is just a step on the way to showing off his torso, which,
wow, check out that torso.Explanation 6: But third base is not totally
perfunctory, either. Dietrich gives away his motives at 0:34 in that clip, when
he takes a split-second glance at the bag before he reaches it. Hes going to
make sure he touches it. He doesnt need to, but hes going to make sure he does.
Thats because Dietrich cares about his slugging percentage. Ultimately, this is
the explanation that probably holds the truest in all of these cases: Baseball
players care about their slugging percentage. Maybe that extra base wont get him
any more money in arbitration, and maybe that extra base wont be the one that
makes him the Marlins all-time leader in slugging percentage. But your vote
probably wont swing the presidential election, and you still vote, right? Derek
Dietrich is voting for Derek Dietrichs slugging percentage. There are worse
crimes.Thanks to Darin Padur, who has served as an official scorekeeper for
major league and Triple-A games since 1992, for help with the scoring details.
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. The 15th-ranked Canadian men lost the opening two games of their European
tour: 19-15 to No. 17 Georgia and 21-20 to No. ARLINGTON, Texas -- Texas Rangers
reliever Jeremy Jeffress, twice suspended in the minor leagues for violating
drug rules, was away from the team Friday following his overnight arrest in
Dallas on a drunken driving charge.The club placed Jeffress on the restricted
list before a game against Cleveland, but general manager Jon Daniels said he
expected the former Milwaukee closer acquired in a trade Aug. 1 to be back with
the team Saturday.Daniels said the AL West leaders were exploring the matter
while Dallas police and Major League Baseball also conducted investigations.Im
glad no one was hurt from it, Daniels said. I dont want to minimize the severity
of what couldve happened. Beyond that, we need to get our arms around some more
of the specifics regarding the due process.A Dallas police spokesman said an
officer made a traffic stop at 2:24 a.m. Friday and arrested the 28-year-old
Jeffress after detecting a sign of intoxication.Online records for the Dallas
County jail show he was booked around 5:15 a.m. on a driving while intoxicated
charge and that he was released on $500 bond. No attorney information was
available for Jeffress.Daniels said he spoke to Jeffress after the arrest, as
did Texas catcher Jonathan Lucroy, the primary player acquired in the trading
deadline deal with the Brewers.I know he fights some stuff on the personal
level, Lucroy said. Whenever youre dealing with stuff in your personal life like
that, that becomes way more importaant than the game.
China
NBA Jerseys. And we have to help him get through whatever hes
trying to get through, to help him be OK in life.The Brewers drafted Jeffress as
the 16th selection overall in 2006. The right-hander was suspended for 50 games
in 2007 and for 100 games in 2009, both times when he was in the minors.Jeffress
made his major league debut with the Brewers in 2010 before getting traded to
Kansas City that offseason. He also spent time with Toronto before Milwaukee
brought him back as a free agent two years ago.The hard-throwing right-hander
became the closer this season, recording 27 of his 28 career saves. As one of
the setup men for Texas closer Sam Dyson, Jeffress has no record and no saves
with a 4.00 ERA in nine appearances with the Rangers.The arrest came after the
first game of a 10-game homestand that includes Cleveland, Seattle and Houston.
The Rangers have a slight edge on the Indians for the best record in the AL,
while the Mariners and Astros are their top pursuers in the AL West.Theres never
a good time for something like this, Daniels said. I dont even want to put it
into baseball terms. Im more concerned now in trying to get our arms around the
situation and look at the real-life element first, baseball second.To fill
Jeffress spot, Texas recalled left-hander Dario Alvarez from Triple-A Round
Rock. ' ' '