Iguchi Stops at Second, and Rightly So
As fate would have it, I managed to catch a few innings of Wednesday afternoon’s contest between the Angels and White Sox on TV. The big story was Chicago right-hander Freddy Garcia, who flirted with perfection for 7 2/3 innings, but you can read about that anywhere.
What caught my attention was something that happened in the third inning. With one on and one out, White Sox second baseman Tadahito Iguchi hit a drive down the right field line and into the corner. He ended up at second with a double, and the Chicago broadcasters immediately got on him for not legging out a triple. Yeah, it looked like he might have been able to take third on the play, but was that necessarily the best move?
Before you answer, consider that the guys batting behind Iguchi were Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, and Joe Crede. If Dye wore Yankee pinstripes, they’d already be giving him the MVP; Thome and Konerko are two of the more potent bats in the AL; and Crede is merely very good. In other words, you’ve got to like your chances to score a run in that inning regardless of whether Iguchi is at second or third.
The cliche in baseball is that you don’t make the first or last out at third base. In the case where three of the best hitters in the league are due up, I’d argue that you don’t make an out at third base, period. By extension, you don’t even try for third in that situation unless you’re absolutely certain you can make it. The potential reward of those extra 90 feet — that you can score on a fly ball as well as a hit — just isn’t worth the risk of sending your big boppers up to the plate without anyone to drive home at all.
In this particular case, Dye struck out swinging for the second out. Iguchi would not have been able to advance from whatever base he was occupying. Thome then singled past the second baseman (who was playing in shallow right-center), which scored Iguchi from second. In other words, the heart of the White Sox order got the job done, as you would expect based on their performance this season.
I can understand wanting to push the action if you’re setting the table for the likes of Juan Uribe, Brian Anderson, and Sandy Alomar, because it’s probably not the best idea to count on them to come through when you need it. But Dye, Thome, Konerko, and Crede are an entirely different matter. And Iguchi, unlike the White Sox broadcasters, appeared to have a real solid grasp of his situation. He played it safe, knowing full well that his teammates were likely to pick him up once he had gotten himself into scoring position.
And that is exactly what they did.
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