The secret to winning: let the other guy lose

How the Tampa Bay Rays won Game 4 of the World Series...

I’ve had parts of this article hanging around for a while and after last night’s World Series game, decided now was a good time to post it. What the hell…it’s Sunday morning and the NFL doesn’t start playing until noon.

And away we go.

Sports movie BS

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that watching too many movies gives you a highly inaccurate picture of how the world works.

• You cannot jump your car off a hill and keep going because your car will probably have a bent frame or a blown out tire.

• You cannot knock somebody out with a light rap to the back of the skull without a better than average chance of hitting them too hard and giving them brain damage and killing them or hitting them too softly and having them turn around and say, “Hey, what the hell, dude?”

• And when plain girls take off their glasses and shake out their hair, for the most part they’re still plain girls, but now their hair looks like crap and they’re squinting.

Movies –and I’m looking at you The Natural – also give us an inaccurate idea of how you win at sports.

Sure, every once in a while someone wins a game by hitting a walk-off homer, sinking a half-court shot or running a kickoff back 101 yards, but those things are memorable because they don’t happen all that much and if you rely on something that doesn’t happen all that much to win, guess what?

You won’t win all that much.

Attempting something extraordinary when you don’t have to is not only a lousy way to win, it’s an outstanding way to lose and here’s how that works.

The grinder and the hotshot

I once read a book about golf and I can’t remember who wrote it, but the thing that stuck with me was a story about “grinders.”

Grinders are golfers who do their best to avoid doing anything monumentally stupid and just try to save pars by taking the highest-percentage shot available. A grinder might not make a fantastic shot all day, but he does his best to avoid shots that are horrible.

So some hotshot golfer plays a grinder and the hotshot knows he’s way better than this guy who does nothing spectacular.

They play the first hole and both shoot par.

They play the second hole and both shoot par.

They play the third hole and both shoot par.

The grinder is content to keep grinding out pars, but at some point the hotshot loses patience and decides to go over the water hazard. And if the hotshot could make it over the water hazard consistently he’d do it every time, but he can’t and he doesn’t and he finishes the hole a stroke down.

Now the hotshot has to make up for the dumb shit he did at the water hazard, so he decides go through the trees and if he could make it through the trees consistently he’d do it every time, but he can’t and he doesn’t and he finishes the hole two strokes down.

After a day of bad decisions and playing longshots, the guy who absolutely knew he was better than the grinder gets his ass kicked. The grinder just kept playing consistent golf and let the hotshot beat himself.

Which doesn’t make a great movie ending.

How many sports movies end with the hero shooting par, making a free throw or picking up a routine grounder and throwing it to first base?

Nevertheless, at least most of the time, the ability to make routine plays routinely is how you win and the inability to make routine plays – especially under pressure – is how you lose.

The value of getting the ball in play

Analytics has a lot of influence in baseball right now and because offense is easier to measure than defense, offense is highly valued and defense not so much. As a result, lots of teams are willing to put mediocre defenders on the field as long as those mediocre defenders provide enough offense.

And smart teams who are willing to zig when everyone else zags can take advantage of that.

Back in the 2015 World Series the Kansas City Royals thought they could beat the New York Mets if they put enough pressure on the Mets defense and as you might recall, the Royals’ approach worked. The Mets made enough defensive mistakes to help the Royals win and afterwards, Royals coach Rusty Kuntz told the media his team had shown the value of getting the ball in play.

The other team can’t make mistakes if they don’t have to do anything.

But just like defense, getting the ball in play is still undervalued; if you hit enough home runs teams will live with your strikeouts.

Last night the Tampa Bay Rays and Los Angeles Dodgers combined for 20 strikeouts and six home runs, but in the end the game turned on the Dodgers inability to make a routine play under pressure.

Bottom of the ninth

The Dodgers were up 7-6 going into the bottom of the ninth, runners on first and second base, two outs and a 1-2 count on Rays’ pinch hitter, Brett Phillips. But Phillips did what he was supposed to do and got the ball in play, which forced the Dodgers to play defense under pressure and that didn’t go so hot.

Mistake #1:

Phillips singled to centerfield and Dodger outfielder Chris Taylor charged the ball hard so he could make a great throw to the plate and keep the runner on second base from scoring. But Taylor got in a rush to make the throw, pulled his head up too soon and booted the ball, which allowed the runner on second to score – game tied.

Mistake #2:

Taylor had to chase the ball toward right field and when he picked it up, got in a hurry and made an off-line throw to the cutoff man, first baseman Max Muncy. The throw pulled Muncy toward the first-base foul line.

When Muncy moved toward the line, catcher Will Smith had to move into foul territory on the first base side of home plate to back up the throw and that put him farther away from the third base side of home where they play would be made.

Mistake #3:

Then Muncy got in a hurry and made another off-line throw, this one to Smith’s arm-side, away from the play. Muncy should have put the throw on Smith’s glove side which would have allowed him to make the catch and turn to make a swipe tag in one short motion.

Meanwhile…

Mistake #4:

When there might be a throw to third or home, the pitcher is supposed to run into foul territory halfway between the two and then after the throw is made, back up the play wherever it occurs. Dodger pitcher Kenley Jansen didn’t do his job; he drifted toward the foul line, then lost momentum and turned into a spectator.

Mistake #5:

Because Smith had to reach for the ball to his right and then swing way back to his left to make a long swipe tag, he got in a hurry and missed the ball.

So there were three guys trying to do too much — Taylor, Muncy and Smith — and one guy not doing enough — Jansen.

Throws from right field are the toughest for a catcher to handle because he has to look in that direction and can’t see the runner coming down the third base line and because Smith was looking toward right field he didn’t see that the second runner – Randy Arozarena – had fallen down.

And because Jansen didn’t back up home plate, the ball rolled far enough away for Arozarena to get up and score the winning run.

Had the Dodgers not made five defensive mistakes on one play, at worst the game would have been tied, but they did make five defensive mistakes and lost…let’s see someone end a sports movie with that.

But none of that happens if Brett Phillips does not put the ball in play and force the Dodgers to play defense.

Like I said at the beginning, most of the time you win because you did the routine stuff and the other guy didn’t. Not nearly as exciting as hitting a home run, blowing up a light tower which somehow sets off a Fourth of July fireworks display, but a helluva lot more realistic.

Enjoy Game 5.