The Wheel Play

jim · Post by **jim** » April 11 07, 6:04 am

The most interesting part of the game last night to me occurred in the 10th inning with Wilson up for the Pirates with runners on 1st and 2nd. The Cardinals, wanting to prevent the advance to 3rd base at all costs, went all out. Usually on the wheel play the SS will move behind 2nd to drive the runner back, and then sprint to 3rd. The pitcher times his delivery so that the SS will beat the runner to 3rd. The SS goes to 3rd, the 2B to 1st, adn the 1B/3B crash. That's the typical way of implementing it, but what I thought I saw (someone correct me if I'm wrong) was that Miles stayed at 2B. We basically left 1B uncovered, unless Miles broke for 1st out of the camera view.

Many times the way to attack the wheel play is to have the hitter not bunt. With the normal defensive allignment, the batter simply has to punch the ball on the ground somewhere, because the entire middle of the diamond is unoccupied. Even at the HS level they coach that up, you just need a guy to be able to pull the bat back and hit it somewhere on the ground. I wonder if what I saw really happen (Miles staying at 2nd with 1B unoccupied) caused Wilson to decide to continue to bunt.

Anyway, a pretty interesting moment in a pretty bad game.

M1IRONMIKE · Post by **M1IRONMIKE** » April 11 07, 6:08 am

I also was a little perturbed in last nights games whent Oquendo sent Bennett on that short fly but like you said on the phone the way we are hitting we have to take the chance to score whenever we can.

jim · Post by **jim** » April 11 07, 6:12 am

I think there is a general lack of confidence in the offense by the coaching staff. I never thought of questioning Oquendo on that until I talked to you, but that was a suicide mission. I still would have done it, and wouldn't have blamed Oquendo if he were out.

The other lack of confidence vote I thought was in the 9th inning. TLR had a pretty full bullpen to work with and instead of playing the mix and match game, he left Flores in the entire inning. I think Tony was digging in for the long haul, not confident that the offense could get something going. The strategy paid off.

mcgee51taguchi99 · Post by **mcgee51taguchi99** » April 11 07, 8:47 am

jim wrote:The other lack of confidence vote I thought was in the 9th inning. TLR had a pretty full bullpen to work with and instead of playing the mix and match game, he left Flores in the entire inning. I think Tony was digging in for the long haul, not confident that the offense could get something going. The strategy paid off.

I thought it was more evident with how long Thompson stayed in the game. Flores looked really good. Thompson on the other hand had pitches that consistently missed location and he did not look the least bit confident.

Once the Cardinals did not capitalize on the shrinking strike zone while batting in each of the innings he pitched I figured we were done for in the bottom half with him out there.