No, I'm not talking about my wife and my girlfriend here! I'm referring to the two (or too?) exciting baseball plays called the Suicide Squeeze and the Safety Squeeze.
Both are types of bunt plays that will be used when a team has a runner at third and fewer than 2 outs in the inning. The idea is that you want to score the runner from third and aren't confident in your ability to do so through a base hit or sacrifice fly ball (to the outfield). A good example might be if you had the pitcher at the plate (National League parks only) or another weak hitter in your lineup. You'd rather try your luck bunting the runner home than risk a strikeout, pop-up or ground ball hit right at an infielder.
The essential difference between them is when the runner at third begins heading for home. In the suicide squeeze, the runner (based on a sign from the dugout or some signal from the 3rd base coach) sprints for home as soon as the pitcher begins his motion to the plate (doing so before that risks the pitcher pitching out such that the ball is thrown toward home but well outside the strike zone, preventing any bunt attempt and making it easy for the catcher to catch the pitch and tag out the runner when he arrives). It's called suicide because the runner's going to be Dead On Arrival if the batter doesn't make contact (the catcher catches the pitch and tags the runner out). So obviously it's important that the batter got the same sign (go/no go) on the pitch that the runner on 3rd got!
The safety squeeze takes away the risk of the runner and batter being out of synch, because the runner doesn't break for home until the batter has successfully made contact with the ball. However, since he's starting the run later, it's more likely that the bunted ball will be fielded and thrown home before the runner gets there. So there's more pressure on the batter to lay down a good bunt that can't be fielded immediately ("hit it where they ain't").
Personally, the suicide squeeze is one of my favourite plays in baseball (to watch). You always know something exciting is going to happen, unless the batter fouls the pitch off. But even then, you're waiting to see if they have the nerve to try it again (since the other team may well pitch out).
Now if only the World Series would live up to the hype this year. It's so far been one of the most boring championship series I've ever watched.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment