from Amazon
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Baseball is about driving the first good pitch you see, not waiting to get into a hitter’s count
So says Tony Larussa.
“You watch your productive hitters in the big leagues, and they get a chance to drive in a run, they look for the first good strike, and the better the pitching, especially this time of the year, you get that first strike, that may be the last one that you get to see. So you’d better be ready to swing early. It’s not sitting up there and taking strike one, strike two so that you can work the count.’’
How come MLB managers don’t manage their bullpen that way? They get a high-leverage situation in the 8th inning, and that may be the last one they see: how come they don’t bring in the ace reliever?
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Anyway, Chipper Jones agrees with Larussa. Chipper has said that he can’t try to give up a decent pitch waiting for an even better one, because he may not get one any longer. The pitcher is ahead 0-1, he works the edges, he gets to 0-2, and now Chipper is at their mercy.
I totally agree with these guys.
At the same time, guys who CAN’T drive the ball simply are better off waiting, because we know that pitchers aren’t that good at locating their pitches.
The only thing I know is that every hitter is different, and he should hit in his own optimal manner. Never would I think to change the batting approach of Vlad or Pujols or Chipper because I think they should be able to get more walks, or think that Rickey Henderson and Barry Bonds and Adam Dunn walked too much. Everyone has his own individual approach, and if they are highly successful, it would be presumptive of me (or us) to think we can make them even more successful.
I remember Larry Walker saying that Felipe Alou had his hitting philosophy, and would keep insisting to Walker (and the rest) to hit a certain way. Walker of course was highly successful because he followed the Larry Walker hitting philosophy.