Small Ball

The Texas Rangers have undergone a serious transformation in regards to their offensive game plan. For many years the Rangers have been a team who've had a prolific offense and lived with the long ball. Ron Washington has slowly incorporated the use of the sac bunt, and the idea of moving runners over in order to create runs. This year Washington has fully introduced the Rangers to the small ball side of baseball. The Rangers are sacrifice bunting in every situation where it might be warranted. For the most part the sac bunts were limited to Andrus (8), Borbon(3), and Treanor(3). But recently the sacrifice's have started coming from odd places. Last week Kinsler laid down a bunt with men on 1st and 2nd and no out. In Friday's game vs the Cubs, Hamilton laid down a bunt with a man on 2nd and no outs.

I am in favor of playing the small ball game when the situation calls for it. My problem with this is that I disagree with when the situation is. I agree with the sac bunt in late game situations in tight games to move runners into scoring position. The Rangers have gotten into a habit of bunting in the early innings with our best hitters at the plate. I don't think this makes sense. Too often the Rangers are giving up outs with some of our best hitters at the plate.

Elvis Andrus is the most common player being called on to sacrifice. Elvis currently has 8 sacrifice bunts on the season. Elvis is currently hitting .312 with a .408 OBP. Since 1980, 6 players have had 8 sac bunts while hitting .300 with a .400 OBP. I think it is reasonable to assume Andrus will have 15 sac bunts or more this year which is 3 more than any other player on that list with the exception of Brett Butler's 24 in 1992 (Lonestarball). This is significant because it shows how rare a guy hitting this well is asked to give up his at bat. Elvis is a guy who is more than capable of making something happen with the bat, and has only 6 DP's in his career. He also strikes out a very low rate. Taking the bat out of Elvis's hands this often is just not a good thing for our team in the long run, especially when it's done in the 4th inning of May game. It's going to cost us runs in the long run.

A big inning early in a game can end a game. A 5 run inning early in a game with the way our pitching staff is going right now can finish a game and save the back-end of the bullpen for another day. Sacrificing to get 1 or 2 runs and win a game 4-2 is nice, but once in awhile, I'd like to see Andrus hit the ball and keep the rally going for Young, Kinsler, and Vlady. I certainly don't want to see Hamilton sacrificing with a man on and no outs in the 4th inning ever! The 4th innings is way to early to know how the game is going. We could play for the one run in a 2-1 game that we end up losing 10-4. In the opening innings it would be wiser, in my opinion, to play for the maximum amount of runs.

The strain all these close games will cause on our bullpen is going to be hard to quantify until later in the season. If we can pull out a few more 5 run wins with some big innings than we can keep Neftali, O'day, and Oliver's innings down. Neftali is a young guy who rarely has pitched on back-to-back nights and I worry about him wearing down if he's having to throw 3 out of 4 nights due to our insistence on winning games 5-4. These close games also minimize the room for error our team has. We have to be a near perfect team in the field and in the pen to win enough close games to make the playoffs.

Close games are going to happen. Playing small ball can, without a doubt, win games, and is an extremely valuable tool to have for a playoff team. I would just like to see us stop giving up outs early in games with guys at the plate who are extremely talented hitters. I don't honestly expect this trend to stop, but I hope to see more swinging away early in games, and saving the bunting for later in the game.