Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. I was under the weather late last week, which was not fun at the time. On the bright side, it gave me plenty of time to sit on the couch and watch baseball. To be fair, that’s what I do even when I’m not sick, but this time I had a good excuse. Baseball cooperated, too: There were some elite series and fun matchups over the past week. Stars facing off? We’ve got that. Baserunning hijinks and defensive lapses? You bet. Beleaguered backups bashing baseballs belligerently? Absolutely, alliteration and all. Shout out to Zach Lowe – now let’s get down to business.
1. Shohei’s Learning Curve
The first matchup between Paul Skenes and Shohei Ohtani was everything it was cracked up to be. Skenes is one of the premier power pitchers in the game, and Ohtani one of the premier power hitters. It’s the kind of matchup you’d pick if you got to write the script for baseball.
Skenes has many pitches in his arsenal, but he only picked one out against Ohtani. It’s the one you’d pick, too:
“Good morning, good afternoon, and good night” is an overused cliché for sequences like these, but I almost used it anyway. That last pitch is a statement. On 0-2 against an elite hitter, you might expect a guy with a 96-mph “splinker” and two other plus secondaries to fish for bad swings. When Ohtani makes contact, the ball flies. Skenes is no dummy. He just went right after Ohtani anyway. Here’s my best; see if you can hit it. Ohtani couldn’t.
The second matchup between the two started the same way, with a challenge fastball:
Skenes proceeded to waste two changeups, and then he went back to the heat:
Then he went back to it again:
But there are only so many times you can put your hand in the cookie jar. The 3-2 pitch was one too many times:
Some of those early swings and misses were by a lot! Ohtani truly looked overmatched on them. But eventually, he wasn’t. And that, in a nutshell, is why pitching is hard. The other guy lives in a big house too. You might be able to overwhelm Ohtani for a while with one of the best fastballs in baseball, but only for so long.
2. Royals Baserunning Adventures
Bobby Witt Jr. was dead to rights:
He was leaning the wrong way, and Bo Naylor was about to fire a strike down to first. This wasn’t going to be the kind of bang-bang play that you can beat with a clever slide or a slick swim move.
There aren’t a lot of good solutions here. Most baserunners would simply dive back toward first, hoping for a bad throw or a dropped tag. That almost never works. But, well, when you’re out on an island like this, nothing really works. Witt had grander designs, though. He decided to simply disappear. Wait, what?
An overhead view clears things up. Witt saw the throw coming and jabbed hard back to first. Josh Naylor saw the jab, then turned to receive his brother’s throw and get a tag down. It’s Bobby Freaking Witt; you know he’s fast, so you better put your all into tagging him. But that jab was a fake:
That’s beautiful instinctual baserunning. Most runners wouldn’t think of it, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be fast enough to pull it off. Witt succeeded there as much because of his mind as his legs.
That’s not the only way to succeed on the basepaths, though. You can win with sheer physical feats. Like, say, MJ Melendez:
“Wait,” I can hear you saying. “What’s impressive about that slow-motion car crash?” But Matt Quatraro, like me, wanted another look:
That second look proved immediately conclusive. Somehow, against all odds, Melendez was clearly safe:
This is absolutely not how they teach you to do it. It was only possible because the throw took Bo Naylor into foul territory — Josh Naylor is an active participant in both of these defensive highlights — but that doesn’t make it any less amazing. Melendez adjusted his body in mid air and turned a sure out into an improbable run.
The Royals have been scuffling of late, and the pesky Guardians have opened up a gap atop the AL Central. The Kansas City bullpen looks flimsy, and the bottom half of its lineup has been punchless. But its starters are elite, and the offensive stars are a blast to watch. Watch a game when you have a chance – you never know when they’ll turn on the jets and make opposing defenses go haywire.
3. Easy Steals of Home
The Brewers are rolling right now. Their bullpen is playing a part, no doubt, but another key is their aggressive baserunning. They prey on other teams’ indecision and sloppy decision-making. Want to see the easiest stolen base of all time? Watch Christian Yelich steal against air:
Wait a second… the scorebug says there was a runner on third?!? Oh yeah, this was the old little league delayed steal play:
As easy as Yelich’s part of that play was, Brice Turang’s was even easier. He saw that the Tigers were throwing through and just walked home. That’s how the play works; as Sam Miller chronicled, teams are increasingly attacking these first-and-third situations and daring catchers to throw to second. The read was automatic for Turang; when the catcher releases the ball, you go home.
If Colt Keith were covering second base, the Brewers still would have scored a run, but Yelich likely would have made an out in a rundown. But even that isn’t clear. Yelich got a great jump, and he likely could have been running faster. After all, he could see that second was uncontested; no one was standing there to tag him. He looked confused when he saw the throw. I can understand why: That throw was to a fielder not covering a base, and it was 100% likely to allow a run to score.
Partially, this is an item about sloppy defense by the Tigers. But it’s also an item about taking every inch the other team gives you. The Brewers weren’t trying for an uncontested double steal there, but they were trying to put pressure on Carson Kelly and the Detroit defense. Put enough pressure on, and you’ll get freebies like this, even in the majors.
4. Giving Up Stylishly
This one was going to lead last week’s Five Things before that got canceled due to my flu-like symptoms, but it was just too amusing to skip. With the Nats up 3-1 against the Braves, they had a sliver of a chance to tack on a run in the eighth inning, but hit into a fairly standard double play to end things:
That ball was hit so sharply that Nick Senzel was pretty much cooked. Maybe he could have tried the Mickey Mantle move and deked to second before returning to first. Maybe that’s the reverse Witt? Either way, he didn’t, and honestly, I don’t think it would have worked. He was much too far off the bag, and Matt Olson had eyes on him the whole time:
Any way you slice it, Senzel wasn’t getting out of that one. Sure, he could have gotten into a rundown, but this isn’t the kind of rundown you can escape. There are no other complicating baserunners. There’s a shortstop running at you, and the first baseman has had plenty of time to get back into the play. This ends in an out basically every time. So Senzel did something you don’t see every day. He slid… about 10 feet short of safety.
Still, this slide was all about safety – just not of the safe/out variety. There’s no need for these grown gentlemen to be slamming into each other at top speed. This play wasn’t contested. No turn of events would make him safe. Doing anything other than slowing to a halt would be counterproductive for both teams. So he stopped, using the way that baseball players generally stop. Orlando Arcia definitely appreciated the gesture:
Baseball is awesome. High level competition is awesome. But gestures of sportsmanship are awesome, too, and this one worked out well for everyone. I also loved the visual of the good-form slide that ends up nowhere near a base. Everyone’s a winner – except the Braves, who didn’t manage to score again.
5. No-Doubt Home Runs From Doubted Players
God, I love a no doubter. I can’t think of anything else like it in any sport. When a ball is clearly gone right off the bat, everyone knows it. The batter, the pitcher, the nearest outfielder, both dugouts, even the fans: Everyone knows what’s going on even before the ball leaves the yard. The sound and sight of a no-doubt home run is simply unmistakable. That instant finality is delightful.
The Yankees are full of giants who crank no doubters left and right. But the one I want to talk about wasn’t hit by any of those guys. Just before the homer, with the Yankees trailing the Dodgers, 5-3, and runners on the corners, the crowd was chanting “We want Soto!” — calling for the soon-to-be hero to get replaced. Then Trent Grisham dropped the hammer:
You want to know how no-doubt this one was? Just look at the players. They’ll tell you every time. Grisham knew it immediately:
Alex Verdugo, the runner on third, was celebrating before the fans behind him even got up:
Tyler Glasnow knew the deal:
Out in right field, Jason Heyward didn’t even make it to the warning track. There was just no point. The fans were going nuts before Grisham reached first. That ball was simply hit so hard that a home run was the only possible outcome.
Grisham has had a disjointed and unsatisfying year so far. He isn’t playing much, he’s having the worst offensive season of his career, and his BABIP is an unbelievable .088. Every time he comes to the plate, he’s probably wondering how long this can go on. But a homer like that will get things turned around. One minute, the crowd is chanting for your head. The next, you’re celebrating with Aaron Judge, to raucous approval:
What a homer. What a spot. What a sport.
