The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

Fire him.

 

Watching it live I couldn't believe it. Where the fuck were Mattingly and Pete Walker, the pitching coach, here? I don't ever recall seeing that - at any level.

 

So maybe I’m just a little bored, but seeing that fuck-up got me thinking. Suppose it was the Angels and Ohtani was on the mound and the manager screws up and goes out there for a second visit without realizing it.

Could the Angels, say, put Ohtani in left field, have the left fielder pitch to one batter (or even to just intentionally walk the next guy), then have Ohtani come back to the mound?

 

There’s a three batter minimum for pitching changes

 

Since he would become the left fielder at that point, that might run afoul of the new rules on only being able to use position players to pitch in certain situations.

 

Good point. Thanks for reminding me.

 

Good point. Forgot about that.

The reason why I brought up the scenario was because I was reading something
where back in the 50s, the White Sox had shifted star pitcher Billy Pierce to first base for one batter, then then put him back on the mound after the reliever got the batter out. I was thinking maybe the Jays could have tried something like that to get around the two mound-visit rule.

 

I saw Chuck Tanner do that once with the Pirates with Kent Tekulve. Moved him to the outfield for one batter in a game against the Giants. Of course there was a fly ball hot to him. There were two out at the time, though, which was too bad because I wanted to see how he threw the ball back to the infield, overarm or underhanded.

But mentioning Mattingly remined me of a Giants-Dodgers game years ago when he was a fill'in manager for Joe Torre. He went out to talk to the pitcher, walked off the mound toward the dugout, then turned back and stepped on the mound to tell the pitcher one more thing. Bruce Bochy argued that constituted two trips to the mound, and won. Dodgers didn't have anyone up in the pen.

 

They were two busy calling the opposing coaches fat.

 

I think the Cubs did it recently put the pitcher in left for a better then came back. But with the rule changes we may not see it again.

 

The minor leagues of Japan definitely has movie written all over it.