So how heaven, yeah always content before you spend

On despair and I try to be different

Yeah, so how heaven, yeah always content before you spend

Desperate and try to be different

Hello and welcome to episode 1394 of Effectively Wild A Baseball Podcasts from Vangraths presented by our Patreon supporters

I am the user of the winner and joined by Samuel or the SPN Hello Sam

Here we have a possible sighting of strategy, D strategy, whatever we're calling it

The strategy we've been discussing for the past few weeks and suggesting that maybe a team should start removing pictures in the middle of plate appearances

To get the element of surprise and it appeared as if it might have happened in the Red Sucks game on Monday

Some people alerted us which I appreciate so I'll lay out the situation here and we can talk about the degree to which this was or wasn't the strategy

So this was in the eighth inning of the White Sucks Red Sucks game

It was the top of the eighth and there were two outs, John J was up so lefty hitter, Colton Brewer was pitching

So righty pitcher and they left in the righty to face the lefty hitter and then on a full count, Alex Cora made the change

He went to the lefty in the middle of the plate appearance and he brought in Josh Taylor

And I don't know what we can say that it worked because Josh Taylor threw a ball and John J walked although Taylor then struck out Joanne Moncata

And the Red Sucks got out of the inning and ultimately they won the game

So this was sort of the strategy in that it was a middle of the plate appearance pull and it wasn't like the pitcher was struggling or he fell behind in the count

So at the time I thought maybe this is it so I texted Brian Bannister, assistant pitching coach for the Red Sucks after the game

And I asked him what the rationale here was and here is his response

It forces the lefty versus lefty matchup when they have a ready pinch hitter ready

The other manager is unlikely to pitch hit for one pitch but more likely if he gets to see multiple pitches

So this was not exactly the strategy but it could be a gateway to the strategy

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