The Defense Thread, 2024

[Hank Scorpio]

11 minutes ago, interloper said:

Yeah that short hop play from Gunnar was do or die and he did the damn thing. Stud. 

I believe it was the out after Mountcastle's diving play but I could be wrong on that.

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

I believe it was the out after Mountcastle's diving play but I could be wrong on that.

Correct, just after Cano replaced Akin.  

[spleen1015]

27 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Santander also had a nice catch in the gap to turn a possible double into an out. 

Also worth noting two critical plays in the 8th where their 1B failed to pick fairly easy balls. The second one could have gotten them out of the inning but allowed us to take the lead (which Kimbrel promptly blew). 

Despite the early errors, you could say our defense outplayed theirs and that was the difference in the game.

I'm not putting that blown save on Kimbrel. He did what he was supposed to do and was let down by the defense. If Gunnar is playing normal SS positioning, he catches that pop up. If Hays does what he was supposed to do, he catches that ball. The SBs don't happen if the defense makes the play.

Just the way the game goes some times.

One of the frustrating things about these shifts to me is how often do they lead to hits more than they lead to outs? There was another play earlier in the game where there was a base hit right to where Westburg would be normally. Instead they had him shifted up the middle and throw an outside pitch to a RH batter. Fine, shift, but don't throw pitches that allow the hitters to hit it in the huge hole you created with the shift.

[Aristotelian]

6 minutes ago, spleen1015 said:

I'm not putting that blown save on Kimbrel. He did what he was supposed to do and was let down by the defense. If Gunnar is playing normal SS positioning, he catches that pop up. If Hays does what he was supposed to do, he catches that ball. The SBs don't happen if the defense makes the play.

Just the way the game goes some times.

One of the frustrating things about these shifts to me is how often do they lead to hits more than they lead to outs? There was another play earlier in the game where there was a base hit right to where Westburg would be normally. Instead they had him shifted up the middle and throw an outside pitch to a RH batter. Fine, shift, but don't throw pitches that allow the hitters to hit it in the huge hole you created with the shift.

Very fair. I actually missed the bloop. Where I still put it on Kimbrel is that he does nothing to hold runners and no longer has the swing and miss stuff to be able to completely ignore baserunners like Bautista.

[NCRaven]

13 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

I didn’t see the 2 SB in the 9th inning.  I know the one at third was being reviewed and was close.

But overall, we need Adley to throw better.  He had a real bad throw on the Witt SB earlier in the game.

I thought the ball got there in plenty of time and that Urias did a bad job with the tag.

[waroriole]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

Very fair. I actually missed the bloop. Where I still put it on Kimbrel is that he does nothing to hold runners and no longer has the swing and miss stuff to be able to completely ignore baserunners like Bautista.

I can’t even imagine what Buck would’ve thought about his TTTP. 

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

I thought the ball got there in plenty of time and that Urias did a bad job with the tag.

This is one of those things where slow mo is deceptive.   Urias probably had a couple hundredths of a second to try to move his glove back a half an inch to get the tag on.   I’m not going to blame him, that was truly a bang-bang play.  To me it was more on Kimbrel for letting the runner get that good a jump.  Adley’s throw was literally perfect.   

[Pickles]

I'd just like to go on the record here and say I think Urias' error in the first inning should not have been called an error.

That was an extremely difficult play.

[RZNJ]

3 minutes ago, Pickles said:

I'd just like to go on the record here and say I think Urias' error in the first inning should not have been called an error.

That was an extremely difficult play.

Seriously?

[Aristotelian]

4 minutes ago, Frobby said:

This is one of those things where slow mo is deceptive.   Urias probably had a couple hundredths of a second to try to move his glove back a half an inch to get the tag on.   I’m not going to blame him, that was truly a bang-bang play.  To me it was more on Kimbrel for letting the runner get that good a jump.  Adley’s throw was literally perfect.   

The KC announcers referred to it several times as a "bad tag". I thought that was really unfair. You are trying to catch a 90 mph rocket with a guy's hand reaching between your legs. Sometimes you will see a guy blind swipe and then miss, or worse, take his eye off the ball and the run scores.

[Moshagge3]

The diving play Mounty made in the 7th to save a run was spectacular, but he also made a key play in the 8th to save a run by knocking down a high hard hopper with Bobby Witt on second. He didn't make the play and the batter reached, but if it gets by him it's a run.

[Pickles]

13 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Seriously?

Absolutely.  

[RZNJ]

13 minutes ago, Pickles said:

Absolutely.  

Ball took more than one hop.  Urias had time to square up and get in front of the ball but decided to backhand.  Tough hop and he whiffed on it.  Ball hit his leg and he still had time to throw the runner out but couldn’t pick it up.  Not routine but a ML 3B is expected to make that play.

[Pickles]

8 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Ball took more than one hop.  Urias had time to square up and get in front of the ball but decided to backhand.  Tough hop and he whiffed on it.  Ball hit his leg and he still had time to throw the runner out but couldn’t pick it up.  Not routine but a ML 3B is expected to make that play.

Might want to look at that again.  Urias had no time to square up, and thus attempted to backhand the ball.  It was a short hop, on a wet field, with an extremely fast runner.

Could he have made the play?  Sure.

Should he have made the play? Not imo.

And to me that's the bar for assigning an error.

[emmett16]

3 hours ago, interloper said:

Yeah that short hop play from Gunnar was do or die and he did the damn thing. Stud. 

That play was so difficult.  I did not think he was going to make it.  Do or die with runner on 3rd two outs, pretty fast running on a chop and he stormed in to get the best hop he could, still didn't get a perfect short hop.  I was amazed he pulled it off.