So I’m sitting in the stands for the Nationals/Tigers game Monday night, because I live in DC and do what I want, and an all too familiar scene plays out. It’s the bottom of the seventh inning, the game is tied at four with two out and a man on third with Bryce Harper at the plate. Now chances are pretty high you know who Bryce Harper is. He’s the type of superstar that draws people in, he puts butts in seats. If you don’t know who Bryce Harper is, then welcome back to civilization. How was that rock you were living under? What kind of rock was it? Was it a sedimentary rock? Oh or maybe a nice igneous rock? Those are my personal favorite. Ok this is going off the rails, back to the topic at hand.
So Mr. MVP is at the plate with a chance to put his team up by at least one. What does Tigers’ pitcher Alex Wilson do? Does he pitch him aggressively? Make him chase one out of the zone? Nope. Intentionally walks him. This puts a man on first and third with two outs and Ryan Zimmerman, then hitting .227, in the box. Naturally, Zim pops out to first base, stranding the runners to bring the tie into the eighth. The Nats would win in the ninth via a walk off homer from Clint Robinson (which I predicted, but my psychic abilities are a topic for another day) so I should be happy. I saw a good game, saw an exciting comeback and a walk-off homer. Not to mention the Yanks hitting bombs all over Yankee Stadium while I’m watching this game. But I’m still mad about that intentional walk to the most electrifying player in the game back in the seventh.
Harper walked twice in the game, one of them being intentional. Now let’s go back to the game on Sunday when the Nationals were playing the Cubs. Harper walked six times, THREE OF THOSE WERE INTENTIONAL WALKS! That’s a clown statistic, bro! He’s already been intentionally walked a league leading 10 times this year. 10! In 33 games. He was intentionally walked 15 times all of last season.
He reached base seven times in that game (was hit by a pitch) without registering an official at-bat. He is the first player in the entire history of baseball to accomplish that feat. Saying “accomplish” in this scenario doesn’t feel right. He didn’t do anything except stand there. I should say Joe Maddon accomplished that feat because he’s the one who came up with that “strategy.”
Stop right there. Strategy is not the word you use when talking about intentional walks. Scared is the word. You are scared. You are basically admitting: this guy is better than my pitcher, my pitcher is less of a baseball player than him, and there’s no way to beat him. You are admitting defeat, plain and simple. But RJ, they pitch around guys like Harper to get to less effective batters. Exactly. It’s a cop out. It’s scared baseball. You want to win the game? Then earn it. Make your professional big league pitcher making millions of dollars do his job and pitch to the best player in the lineup. If you were a Major League pitcher would you want to say, “I struck out Bryce Harper.” Or, “I walked Bryce Harper on purpose.” Which one do you think is more impressive? This is a major league sport with the top echelon of athletes in the world. It’s a competition, so compete!
Now is when people chime in and say that the Cubs won that game, so that “strategy” worked. And I’m sure there’s some statistic out there that shows a correlation between intentionally walking top hitters and teams winning the game. Intentionally walking a batter is the equivalent of a defensive line simply stepping out of the way when Walter Payton got the hand off. They know they can’t catch him, so why not just let him go and score? Or an entire defense standing on the side of the court whenever Stephen Curry lines up for a three. He’s going to make it, so why even try and stop him? It’s pathetic. You’re admitting you are not good enough to be on the field. Another argument is that the guy hitting next needs to step up. Listen, bad players are always going to be around. You can’t avoid a guy slumping or a weak spot in a lineup, but you can avoid managers taking the easy way out and intentionally walking guys. It’s more of a problem in the NL than the AL since the pitcher bats, but I’m not getting into the politics of making the DL universal in this article. I don’t have the time or energy. Let’s stick to one rant at a time.
Fans are spending over a hundred dollars to attend games, not to mention food, beer, parking, stuff like that. They’re paying their hard earned money to watch Harper stand in the box while the pitcher and catcher basically play catch? Get that weak sauce out of here. They’re in the seat to watch Harper, and players like him, mash the baseball and score runs. All this talk about wanting to make baseball more exciting to watch and needing more offense, there you go. There’s a major factor. On the other side of the ball, you’re robbing the fans of the satisfaction of their pitcher working out of a jam and striking out the best of the best. Case and point:
It’s moments like that that gets our blood flowing, gets us on our feet and cheering as adamantly as CC. It’s what makes baseball fun. Tell me how watching the process of an intentional walk makes baseball exciting exactly? If you’re going to keep such a clown maneuver, at least don’t make me sit through the four pitches. Just have the pitcher bow down to the batter and whimper in fear pointing to first base. That’s the image you’re basically giving off anyway, so just do it. This will shave time off the game too, because apparently that’s suddenly a huge deal. Don’t come at me with that baseball purist argument either. Intentional walks weren’t officially tracked until 1955.
Imagine if batters could take intentional outs. Picture Mariano Rivera coming to the mound. The batter knows he isn’t even going to come close to getting on base, so he just takes three swings without the ball even being thrown. We would be robbed of the art and beauty that was Mo pitching. Just like we’re being robbed of the Harper’s and Trout’s and Goldschmidt’s art that is their swing. So if you ask me, intentional base on balls needs to take a walk. Make baseball fun again.
