Alcides Escobar is not a good hitter. I don’t say that to be mean — I say that to be honest. Even the Royals don’t really know how to explain Esky Magic. There’s no getting around his regular-season numbers, and when you mix in what he’s done in the playoffs, it doesn’t make that much of a difference. He’s the kind of hitter that, if you saw him in a community park, you’d think, that guy ought to play in the majors. But he’s the kind of hitter that, when he’s in the majors, you think, that guy plays a hell of a shortstop. In his best year, Escobar was a bit below average. He followed that year with a year where he hit like a good-hitting pitcher.
Escobar doesn’t walk, and Escobar doesn’t hit for power. The thing he has going for him is he’s tremendously difficult to strike out. In that sense he blends in with the Royals, although even on that roster he’s one of the standouts. Escobar, in short, is good at taking the bat to the baseball. From there, things will sort themselves out. The most charitable way to describe Escobar’s offense is that, with his speed and his contact ability, he’s usually capable of making something happen. Better a ball in play than a whiff, right? You never know, with a ball in play.
In the World Series opener, Escobar’s contact allowed for things to happen. After days of talking about the Royals’ ability to avoid the whiff, Escobar put contact to good use. Two examples were and are obvious. A third was subtle, but without it, Escobar doesn’t score the winning run on the Eric Hosmer sac fly.
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