Idiots Write About Sports

The A’s don’t run — that’s what robotic play-by-play announcers like to say anyhow, and they must know something because they’re on television. Right?

Well, not exactly. This weekend, the A’s played the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, a team that runs early and often. And while you’ll never confuse which team is which, there were a couple incidents in Friday night’s game that proved aggressive base-running is a lot more effective when used in the right situation.

In the third inning of Friday night’s game, with the Athletics already up 2-1, Mark Ellis drew a lead-off walk. The very next batter, Scott Hatteberg, followed with a looping pop fly that carried to the farthest reaches of the Oakland Coliseum’s endless foul territory. Damian Rolls gave chase and made a pretty nice catch, falling ass over tea-kettle in the process. Ellis tagged up and made second easily — so easily, in fact, that the Devil Rays thought he left early and appealed the play. That implies to me that Ellis was planning on tagging up whether Rolls fell down or not.

Whatever the case, Ellis’ running turned out to be significant. Two batters after Hatteberg, Eric Chavez lined a base-hit to center, plating Ellis and putting Oakland up 3-1.

The fourth saw nearly an identical scenario. Terrance Long reached on a one-out walk, then tagged and went to second on Eric Byrnes’ lazy pop fly to right. This was not one of those back-to-the-warning-track-he-leaps-what-a-catch pop-out. Aubrey Huff had to run in on the ball to catch it, making Long’s advance all the more daring. Ellis promptly drove him home with a two-out base hit.

So that’s two innings, with the A’s essentially manufacturing runs in each of them. How’s that for small-ball, purists?

Interestingly enough, the bone-headed play on the basepaths in Friday’s game was committed by Tampa. With one out in the ninth, and the Devil Rays trailing 5-2, Rocco Baldelli scorched a drive down the left field line. Long tried to play the carom, but the ball just died in the corner (though the folks behind me argued that cagey Terrance Long was merely playing possum; who am I to disagree with them, other than the fact they were wrong?) so Baldelli rounded second without breaking stride. Long recovered the ball, fired a very accurate throw to Chavez at third, and Baldelli was thrown out surprisingly easily.

Here’s the thing — whether Baldelli stops at second or makes it to third, Tampa is still down three runs. If they’re only trailing by one, maybe — and it’s a fairly sizable maybe — it’s worth the risk of taking the extra base to try and coax that run home on a sacrifice fly. All Baldelli did was run his team out of the inning; Travis Lee followed with a game-ending flyout.

I like aggressive base-running as much as the next guy. But I also like aggressive base-running that takes things like risk and reward into account. The A’s aren’t going to lose their image of plodding station-to-station ballplayers any time soon, but they certainly deserve far more credit for smart base-running than they get.