9th inning of Game 1 exemplifies Buck Showalter’s genius

By Patrick Green | Oct 11, 2014

Buck Showalter is one of the best managers in the game of baseball today. While that statement should fail to surprise even the most casual of fans it is always fun to highlight a paradigm that captures Showalter’s, or any manger’s, genius in its essence.

Luckily, last night’s ALCS Game one showed the world just that and this time for a nice change of pace the optimal process resonated into a positive result. Also just so we are clear a manager can, in fact, make a wise decision even if their team does not emerge victorious.

Anyway, the scene took place during the top of the 9th inning in a 5-5 game in an exciting and wet game at the always-beautiful Camden Yards.

Zach Britton, who posted a stellar 1.65 regular season ERA with his top-notch sinker, came in in relief of Andrew Miller who pitched a scoreless eight the inning prior.

Now, one could, to no avail, attempt to draw a quarrel with the O’s skipper’s decision to go with the lefty Britton, not the righty Darren O’Day, in the ninth because of the fact that it was not a save situation or the fact that Alcides Escobar, who led off the inning, was a right-handed hitter.

To begin debunking the previous situation I will say this: why does a meaningless and subjective counting stat mean more to some than winning the game? Not allowing one’s closer to participate in a high-leverage situation because it does not enable them to attain a save is ludicrous; absolutely ludicrous.

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Addressing the second part is a bit more constructive. A somewhat reasonable argument could be made that O’Day should have come in to, at the very least, face the first righty (Escobar). However, Showalter was preparing for an extra inning affair, which as it turns out, it was.

Using O’Day for one batter (the following batter was a lefty, by the way) would have only given him the option of extending Britton another inning or to go to the only two available relievers Brad Brach and Brian Matusz.

Plus, two of the next four hitters were lefties so bringing Britton in made sense any way you look at it.

But despite the logic behind the decision, Britton was unusually erratic. Most notably with the command of his sinker. He started off the inning walking Escobar on six pitches; four of which were sinkers and of those four three were called balls.

I will say, however, two of those were actually strikes but the vertical movement of the sinker and Nick Hundley‘s sub-par pitch framing gave the homeplate umpire the perception that they were balls.

Next, Britton was tasked with pitching against the speedy left-handed hitter Jarrod Dyson. Whether it was because Dyson was showing bunt or due to the fact he could not get a decent grip on the ball because of the rain, Britton walked him on four awful sinkers. They were not even close to the plate.

The narrative held true for the following batter Lorenzo Cain. Britton missed horribly on all four pitches and Cain trotted to first, loading the bases with noone out in the inning.

The southpaw’s inconsistency was undeniable; for some reason he could just not throw the pitch that has yielded him a flabbergasting 75.3 GB%.

At this point, one would typically expect to see the manager come out and prematurely take the ball out of the pitcher’s hand despite the fact Eric Hosmer was a left-handed hitter. Yet Buck Showalter is no ordinary manager.

He knew all-too-well the probability Hosmer would excel against a lefty was significantly lower than if a righty (O’Day) were to come in. The recency bias effect had no impact. He played it from an analytical-perspective.

Even if this were not to pan out, which it very well could have, Showalter made the right decision. Well, fortunately it did work out.

In large part, this was thanks to

Steve Pearce

and Nick Hundley. We are now spared of the irritating and trite rhetoric from pundits falsely insisting Showalter made the wrong choice. Here’s the game-saving play below.

Fancy glove-work, right? If this game could have ended right there, it would have been perfect. But, alas, it did not. The Orioles still had to collect two outs before taking a crack at winning the game in walk-off fashion.

Britton’s night, though, was finished. As Showalter wisely decided to go to O’Day to face the right-handed hitting Billy Butler, who is also a great ground ball double play candidate, if I do say so myself.

And the 13th-most ground-ball-double-play player did just that.

Butler clubbed an imposing .321 average and 137 wRC+ against left-handed pitching this year, compared to a meager .255 average and 84 wRC+ versus right-handed pitching. Going to O’Day in this situation was right on so many levels but Butler’s splits sum it up perfectly.

Buck Showalter properly yet unconventionally utilized his bullpen in a way that was optimal and gave his team the best chance to win. Though, in reality, they fell to the Royals 8-6 due to home runs by Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas in the 10th inning.

Showalter’s tactics within the top of the ninth were admirable. A lot of managers would have been afraid to take their closers out with the game on the line.

A lot of managers would have been afraid to insert their closer in a non-save situation. But not Showalter; he does whatever it takes to accomplish the most important goal in baseball: to win.