Put the ball in play
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Back in my playing days, my dad would always tell me, “Put the ball in play and good things will happen.”
I wish I would have taken that advice to heart and maybe my baseball career would have gone a little farther.
Well, the Washington Nationals appear to be using that strategy in the World Series, and it’s paying off in a big way.
In the regular season, the Astros struck out the fewest times with a K% of 18.2. The Nationals were very good as well with a K% of 20.9.
But what the Astros also did better than everyone else in the regular season is take walks with a BB% of 10.1.
The Astros lineup is known to be a very patient lineup that loves to work the count. That’s all well and good at times, but when you’re going up against the best pitchers in the league, if you don’t get them early in the count you’re setting yourself up for failure.
The strength of Cole, Verlander, Max Scherzer, and Stephen Strasburg is their ability to strikeout hitters.
Those four combined for 1,120 strikeouts during the regular season. When they get to two strikeouts, more often than not they are going to strike you out.
In the first two games of the World Series, Scherzer and Strasburg have combined for 14 strikeouts in 11 innings while Cole and Verlander have 12 strikeouts in 13 innings.
That doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but when the moment has called for it, the Nationals starters have gotten the big strikeout.
Three of Strasburg’s six innings ended with a strikeout, including that huge strikeout of Kyle Tucker to end a six-inning threat.
Scherzer finished four of his five innings with a strikeout, twice using it to get out of a jam.
Meanwhile, Nationals hitters have looked to attack early in at-bats and have done a great job of putting the ball in play.
Never was that more evident than in the seventh inning of Game 2 when Howie Kendrick put an 0-1 pitch in play that ended up breaking that inning open.
Later in that inning, Ryan Zimmerman put a 3-2 pitch in play and two more runs scored.
Neither of those balls was hit hard, but they did a ton of damage.
With all of the narrative in the sport about the long ball and strikeouts, the Nationals have made it a point to not fall behind these powerful pitchers and to try and put the ball in play.
We’ll see if the success of that strategy continues for the Washington Nationals in this World Series, and if the Houston Astros hitters make an adjustment.