Wild World Series Tactics: 2010-2011

This series is careening headlong towards a conclusion. The Giants are in the building, winning World Series in droves. The Rangers are around, with Ron Washington telling players about the difficulty of playing defense, and also batting whoever he wants wherever he wants. And the decisions — well, they’re still baffling. But enough exposition. Let’s get right to it.

2010

Ah, yes, the inevitable-in-hindsight even-year Giants. It’s easy to think of these teams in retrospect as scrappy overachievers. But they had an excellent lineup — leadoff hitter Andres Torres had a career year (125 wRC+, 6.3 WAR) and led off, and six other above-average hitters followed him, in roughly comprehensible order. The team finished sixth in baseball in non-pitcher wRC+; they were a legit offense.

The Rangers were a different story. Elvis Andrus had his worst offensive year — and led off. Michael Young, already on the decline, batted second. Mitch Moreland strangely batted behind Bengie Molina in Game 1 — against right-handed Tim Lincecum. Texas might have had the better names, but the Giants had the better offense in 2010.

In Game 1, it showed. There weren’t any interesting decisions to make, because the Giants hung seven runs on Rangers ace Cliff Lee and another four on the bullpen. Bruce Bochy mixed and matched a total of six relievers, but the game never got too close for comfort. Game 2 was more of the same — Mitch Moreland batted behind a defense-first catcher (Matt Treanor this time) and the Giants obliterated the Texas bullpen en route to a 9-0 pasting.

There were a few decisions of note in this game: Bochy leaned on Matt Cain for 7 2/3 tough innings. Cain got through it without any runs, though he only struck out two. He also walked two — and one of those two walks was an intentional walk to Moreland to instead face C.J. Wilson with a runner in scoring position. Maybe don’t bat a solid hitter in front of the pitcher next time, huh?

When the time came to get Cain, however, Bochy did the right thing. He let Cain pitch to Andrus and Young a fourth time, which felt a bit dodgy, but pulled him for a left-handed specialist, the eternal Javier Lopez, before things got too hot. Lopez retired Josh Hamilton to end the Rangers’ scoring threat in the eighth. From there, the Giants put the game away with seven runs in the bottom of the inning.

In an AL park, Washington made a change; instead of batting Moreland eighth, he batted him ninth. This time, at least, the Giants brought a lefty starter; but while Moreland was a rookie, it wasn’t exactly a secret that he could hit, and it’s still hard to understand why he was so buried. I suppose I don’t hate hitting him ninth if the choice is between eighth and ninth only, but why not use him further up in the lineup whenever possible? I truly don’t know.

In any case, Moreland cracked a three-run dinger in the second inning of this one, platoon disadvantage and all. Molina even walked in front of him! Maybe Wash was playing 4-D chess. Colby Lewis handcuffed the San Francisco offense. The closest thing to drama came when Washington sent Lewis out for the eighth inning to face the top of the Giants lineup for the fourth time, with 93 pitches already in the books. An out, a homer, another out, and a hit batter later, the game was a little close again — 4-2 with the tying runner at the plate in Buster Posey. Darren O’Day came in, again the right man for the job, and got Posey before Neftalí Feliz closed the game out.

Credit where credit is due: Washington didn’t fall victim to a small sample size bias. He stuck with Moreland in the nine spot for Game 4. Unfortunately for him, the Giants sent rookie lefty Madison Bumgarner to the mound… and you pretty much know how this one goes. Bumgarner was tremendous — eight innings, six strikeouts, three hits, and no runs — and the Giants scratched together enough offense to win 4-0.

Game 5 was a rematch of Lincecum against Lee, and Lincecum absolutely went off — eight innings pitched, 10 strikeouts, and only three hits allowed. Lee was excellent for six innings, until the fateful seventh. The Giants led off with two singles before Aubrey Huff pulled that biggest sabermetric no-no, a sacrifice bunt, which made it second and third with one out. Pat Burrell followed with a strikeout — nice bunt! Naturally, though, Edgar Renteria hit a three-run shot to left center, and that was the game. Lincecum was too much to overcome.

2011

Was this the most dramatic World Series of all time? There’s an argument to be made, though I think it falls short of the best in history. One thing it certainly was, though, was a chance for managers to go old school. The Cardinals batted their two lowest-OBP hitters in the first two slots — Rafael Furcal and Jon Jay weren’t awful, but they were the wrong choices for the job. The Rangers batted Andrus second, and he was something like their ninth-best hitter on the year.

By the fifth inning, Tony LaRussa got into the out donation game. In a 2-2 tie, Furcal walked to lead off. Unhappy that his gambit of batting his worst OBP hitter in the first spot simply because he was fast had paid off, he decided to burn an out bunting Furcal over to second. This led to an intentional walk for Albert Pujols, a groundball double play for Matt Holliday, and why did they bunt again?

But wait! Washington wasn’t taking this sitting down. Ian Kinsler led off the top of the next inning with a bloop single — and Andrus promptly bunted him over to second. I suppose when you bat your worst hitter second, the bunt becomes more appealing — but Andrus was still a perfectly fine hitter, and in any case, the Rangers didn’t do any run scoring that inning. Whoops.

After Allen Craig drove home the tie-breaking run in a pinch-hitting appearance in the seventh inning (and it was a good spot to pinch hit, bases loaded with two outs), LaRussa went to his patented matchup game. He brought in Fernando Salas to face three righties, then went to Marc Rzepczynski, which forced the Rangers to pinch hit for David Murphy. Rzepczynski retired two righties to get out of the jam Salas had created, and the Rangers never threatened again. LaRussa squeezed one last bunt into the game in the bottom of the eighth, but it was actually a close call, so I’ll exclude it from the lowlight reel.

Game 2 lacked the bunting drama of Game 1, but LaRussa showed off perhaps his greatest managerial trait, his willingness to pinch hit for starters before they struggled. This time, he brought in Allen Craig with men on first and third and two out in a seventh-inning tie. Jaime García had been more or less cruising — seven strikeouts against only three hits, and only 24 batters faced and 87 pitches through seven — but the situation dictated the swap, and Craig came through with an RBI single.

It didn’t matter; the Rangers struck back for two runs in the top of the ninth and won 2-1. But it didn’t have to be that way! The Cardinals had an opportunity to break the game open in the bottom of the eighth; first and second with two outs. Just one problem — their normal number six hitter, eventual World Series hero David Freese, had been pulled from the game for Daniel Descalso in a defensive substitution.

Freese wasn’t a particularly bad defender, nor Descalso a good one — in fact, both in their careers as a whole and in 2011, Freese scores better at third base. But it was defensive substitution time, and by Jove, the Cardinals made one. This decision didn’t determine the game — but a defensive substitution when the hitter is likely to bat again and it’s a marginal upgrade at best is worthy of second guessing.

In Game 3, LaRussa put Craig, starting at DH, in the number two spot in the lineup, a downright modern decision. He decided to move Jay down to eighth — which again raises the question of why Jay had been hitting second. He wasn’t tied to his starter, though; when Kyle Lohse allowed two home runs and two singles in four batters to start the fourth, Fernando Salas replaced him immediately.

After Salas escaped the jam, he came back to pitch in the next inning — and promptly allowed three straight hits to start the inning. LaRussa again went to the pen, this time tabbing Lance Lynn, who allowed both inherited runners to score but limited further damage. The game eventually got out of hand — Pujols hit three homers to lead the onslaught — but LaRussa didn’t manage like it was in the bag, appropriately acting when his pitchers started to falter.

In Game 4, Derek Holland dominated the Cardinals. He went 8 1/3 innings and struck out seven against only two walks and two hits, and Neftalí Feliz closed things out. LaRussa was a little late on the switch this game — he let Edwin Jackson start the sixth inning with 94 pitches already in the bag and the Rangers ahead 1-0. Jackson wasn’t quite the journeyman we now remember him as, but with LaRussa’s quick hook, it wouldn’t be a weird spot to hit the showers. Instead, he walked two of his first three batters, both of whom scored. But again, it didn’t matter — Holland was just too good.

By Game 5, Jay — the Cardinals’ number two hitter to start the series — hit the bench in favor of fellow lefty Skip Schumaker, who quite reasonably batted eighth. But the spirit of LaRussa remained. After Furcal legged out a bunt single and advanced to second on an error, the Cardinals were in an enviable spot — their leadoff runner on second with Craig, Pujols, Holliday, and Berkman due up.

Craig came to the plate, and sacrificed himself on the first pitch. It wasn’t an attempt to bunt for a hit, nothing like that — just a simple sacrifice bunt from the DH in the game for his power. Naturally — naturally! — the Rangers walked Pujols and Holliday hit into a double play. Stop bunting!

But the Cardinals didn’t want to stop bunting. When Schumaker and Nick Punto reached to start the fifth, Furcal bunted them over to second and third. Craig struck out, the Rangers intentionally walked Pujols, and Holliday grounded out. Stop bunting!

But the Cardinals didn’t want to stop bunting. Yadier Molina led off the eighth with a single in a tie game — and Ryan Theriot pinch hit and bunted. This brought up Punto and Furcal, who both went quietly. Stop bunting, particularly with a pinch hitter with your ninth hitter up next!

Oh yeah, saving Theriot would have been useful. In the ninth, Craig reached base to lead off the inning with the Cardinals down two runs. But without an available pinch runner, they instead elected to start Craig in a 3-2 count to Pujols to avoid a double play. Naturally, he was thrown out by about five feet after Pujols struck out — somehow Craig’s second caught stealing of the game. Just… stop bunting! And stop putting the runner in motion when you’re down two runs and the runner is slow.

Game 6 is the David Freese game, but it was really a story of many contributions. Skip Schumaker, now inexplicably batting second, singled in the first and scored on a home run. Freese dropped a pop up that led to a run in the fifth; he could have been the goat! And it could have been the Mike Napoli game — he picked Matt Holliday off of third base in the sixth to save a run, and went 2-3 with three walks.

Heck, the Rangers could have blown this one open. Derek Holland came into the game to face one batter in the bottom of the sixth — but the Rangers decided they were going to try to use him for multiple innings, even though his spot came up fifth in the batting order in a tie game. The Rangers led off the inning with two home runs, and Holland ended up attempting a sacrifice bunt that got the lead runner thrown out. He later scored in the inning — Octavio Dotel came into the game and uncorked a wild pitch before giving up a single — but batting with a reliever is never a good look.

By this point in the game, the Cardinals had gone fully double-switch crazy. Furcal, Schumaker, and Punto, who had all started the game, were replaced by pitchers, which left Jay, Descalso, and Theriot in the game in their place. There simply weren’t pinch hitters left, which meant the Cardinals had to muddle through with whatever they had available.

And of course, it could have been the Endy Chavez game. Chavez batted for pitcher Mike Adams in the top of the ninth. He was on the Rangers more or less to provide defensive help, and he was ready. But the Rangers, up two runs and with Neftali Feliz on the mound, left Nelson Cruz in the game instead. Freese cranked a ball over Cruz’s head, and the game went into extra innings.

The double switch crowd acquitted themselves well. Descalso and Jay both singled to lead off the bottom of the 10th after the Rangers scored twice. LaRussa, having double switched until his eyes bled, was left with an empty bench and the pitcher’s spot up. He pinch hit with pitcher Kyle Lohse and had him sacrifice bunt — not a terrible use of the pinch hitter given the circumstances, but it would have been avoidable if it weren’t for all the double switches.

The move worked. Lance Berkman eventually tied the game, and Freese won it the next inning. But the Cardinals made it harder on themselves than they had to, and the Rangers could have made it all moot with an elite defender in right field.

Game 7 was a relative letdown for weird decisions — Andrus bunted with a man on first and no one out in a one-run game in the third, and the Rangers used C.J. Wilson in relief, which actually looks pretty reasonable — but the craziness was all in Game 6. It was all over except the crying — and the looking back, only half-believing, at the wild decisions that got both teams here.