The Problems (and Not) of Grant Balfour

OK, to everyone who is all up and impressed by the Ray’s risk-taking in loading the bases last night: I just want to make clear that loading the bases in no way could have helped the Phillies. Who cares is four (or three, or two) guys score? It’s the bottom of the ninth in a tied game, and so it’s only about whether one guy can score–Eric Bruntlett, who’s already on third. There are no outs (i.e., you can’t just get a forceout or two elsewhere to end the game without the run scoring). So you have to make it as easy as possible to get Bruntlett out at home. And therefore it actually helps the Rays and not the Phillies to walk two guys to create the forceout.

It sounds all dramatic to walk the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, and in some ways those walks do signify drama: the Rays wouldn’t have done it if the score had been more uneven, if one little hadn’t meant the game, and if there hadn’t been a lone baserunner on third that represented that run. But it’s not that the Rays were impressively putting their World-Series lives on the line–or actually risking anything at all.

In other words, granting ball four was not among Grant Balfour’s problems last night.

P.S. Much as I’m kvetching about this, it’s the five-man infield that I find awesome. Never saw that before. Stuff for the ages.

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