Intentional Balk and the shift
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Anyone see Kelly Janson intentionally balk a runner to 3rd with 2 outs in the 9th? He was concerned signs were being seen by Heyword on 2nd base and with his team winning by 2 really wasn’t concerned with him being on 3rd so he balked him over there. Good strategy.
Totally unrelated topic. What’s your opinion of the shift? I was in Wrigley the other night for Sox-Cubs and Bryant gets on 1st twice because of it. Drives me crazy! Also drives me when batters don’t try to beat the shift by going the opposite way. Carpenter on the Cards actually bunted hard past the shift for a double the other day. But that’s a rarity.
The commish has talked about banning it which also drives me nuts. You can’t tell a defense where they can and can’t play. Let them be stupid on their own.
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More players like Bryant and Carpenter taking advantage of the shift is the way to end the shift. No need for any new rules. Gordon needs to bunt hard down third every at bat till they play him honest.
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@wissox idk why they would take away the shift, it’s like they try harder every year to make baseball less watchable. To me it’s already far and away the most boring pro sport. Golf as surpassed it the last few years IMO and the ratings have been laughable for decades. I forget which team it was but last month a team with a winning record played a home game with an announced attendance of 17 fans!
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@kjayhawks Manfred thinks it takes away offense. There’s already enough offense, in between huge number of players striking out. Hard to legislate against that, but he needs to figure that out too.
