Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week, May 30

Hello, and welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. Memorial Day marks the point at which we’re a third of the way through the season, a great time to take stock of how preseason story lines have fared in the light of the regular season day. The Orioles might be bad. The Phillies and Tigers might be great. The Rockies might be the worst team of all time. Aaron Judge might be an alien. We’ve learned a lot so far – but none of those things affect the day-to-day experience of watching baseball. That’s what I like about it so much – you can turn on a random game, completely ignore any of those overarching narratives, and still see something delightful. So this week, let’s celebrate the little things that don’t necessarily win games but do consistently bring a smile to my face. With my customary nod to Zach Lowe of The Ringer for his basketball column that inspired this one, let’s dive in.

1. Determination
I’ve always been fascinated by Nick Allen, who blends elite shortstop defense with a completely powerless approach to offense. That combination got him traded to the Braves this winter to play a utility infielder role, but he outplayed Orlando Arcia in spring training to claim the starting job, and he’s been running with it. Not on offense – his 68 wRC+ is both mortifying and a career high – but on defense, he’s never been better.

Allen’s defense is many things, but most importantly to me, it’s kinetic. He doesn’t give up on plays. He’s always moving. He’ll throw from any platform, any arm angle, jump or twist or slide to get more force behind it. He’s graceful around second base, but it’s a nervous kind of grace, a ballet dancer after four shots of espresso. And if something gets in his way, he’ll just run through it:

That’s definitely not how you draw up a double play at home. Ozzie Albies just got tunnel vision; this is the shortstop’s ball all the way. Allen could field it with his momentum heading the right direction and then either take it to second himself, or flip it to Albies for a conventional turn. But Albies misjudged Allen’s position and went for the ball himself, even though he was in no position to turn two from there:

That probably should have held Allen to a single out. Though Albies tried to pull up at the last second, he clipped Allen’s torso and left leg in the collision, spinning him out towards right field from his initial direct line to second base. But this is part of Allen’s genius. Body torquing like a top, runner bearing down, momentum nonexistent, he just chugged through it. He put his head down, recalibrated his steps to hit second cleanly, and fired a fallaway throw to first with just enough on it:

This isn’t something you practice. You could go your whole career at shortstop without having to avoid your own second baseman, well on your side of the bag, before turning a double play. No one would fault him for taking the out at second and leaving it at that. But Allen isn’t the type to settle for one out. This is just who he is: an instinctual, phenomenally coordinated defender. It might not always look like art, but who cares? Allen is playing shortstop about as well as anyone in the majors right now. Let’s get one more angle of this one just to emphasize it:

2. The Var-Show
On Monday night, Daulton Varsho beat Jacob deGrom and the Rangers all by himself. He started things off with a bang, a laser to right field to put the Jays up 1-0:

That’s part of Varsho’s game. He has 25-homer power, and even though he missed a month to start this year, he’s already hit eight dingers in 100-ish plate appearances. He laced a ground rule double that led to another Jays run in the fourth inning; more of the same skill. Now, is Varsho striking out a third of the time this year? Indisputably. Is he walking? No, basically never. His carrying tool on offense is power, and it better be, because he’ll never be a high on-base guy. He does have one trick he can break out when the Jays need a baserunner, though. Varsho might be the best bunter in baseball, and when he faced lefty specialist Hoby Milner, he didn’t waste time, dropping this beauty down on the first pitch (thanks to my friend Blake Murphy for pointing this one out, as I’d already switched games and would have missed it otherwise):

Varsho has blazing speed, so he doesn’t need much of an opening to attack, and he laid the ball down perfectly. As soon as the pitcher couldn’t get there, the play was over; Varsho is fast enough that a single moment of hesitation will make him safe. The Jays hung on to win this one 2-1, and the next day, Varsho added the third type of highlight he’s best known for:

It’s nice to be Superman. I can’t add a lot of nuance to that play. Being really fast and taking really good routes? That’s how you play good defense. But I do have a new obsession, courtesy of this excellent series, and I’m hoping that you can help me track it if you watch the Jays play.

My favorite piece of hockey jargon is the Gordie Howe hat trick. A regular hat trick – three goals – is a time-honored hockey statistic, but the Gordie Howe hat trick is a little different: a goal, an assist, and a fight (hockey used to be wild). In baseball, the cycle is roughly as time-honored as the hockey hat trick, so I propose a Daulton Varsho cycle: a home run, a bunt single, and an excellent defensive play.

Varsho himself has only accomplished this feat once in the majors. On September 4, 2022, he homered and then bunted for a hit after tracking down a Tyrone Taylor drive into the gap:

Luckily, it’s not a huge problem that Varsho hasn’t accomplished his namesake feat very often. As my colleague Michael Baumann told me, Howe himself only had three Gordie Howe hat tricks in his career. But I hope Varsho can do it at least one more time, in the home of hockey, and secure his place in weird sports feat lore. And I hope that the Pete Crow-Armstrongs, Jacob Youngs, and Luke Raleys of the world follow suit – pull this off enough times, and you might even get it named after you.

3. Jorge Mateo’s Versatility
I might have a bias when it comes to slick-fielding shortstops who can’t hit. Jorge Mateo bears a superficial resemblance to Nick Allen, at least statistically. He’s above average at one of the hardest defensive positions on the field, but he has a career 77 wRC+ because he doesn’t walk, he strikes out too much, and he doesn’t hit for power. But that suits the Orioles just fine, because they don’t need a starting infielder; they already have Gunnar Henderson, Jordan Westburg, and Jackson Holliday.

What they do need is a versatile backup who can fill in almost anywhere and play good defense. Mateo has been doing that since Henderson claimed his natural position in the second half of 2023. Last year, Mateo played 450 innings at second base while backing up shortstop, and he even mixed in a few games of center field. This season, he’s already played second, short, third, left, and center. And while his outfield defense doesn’t grade out all that well so far, you can’t fault his effort:

Dylan Carlson was playing that ball cautiously, sneaking a glance at the wall and setting up directly in front of it in case he had a play. Then Mateo burst onto the scene out of nowhere. You could almost hear him yelling “LEEEROY JENKINS!” as he tracked the ball, realized he’d be jumping into the wall awkwardly to get his glove on it, and then just went for it anyway:

You can’t teach that effort. Honestly, you shouldn’t teach that effort: It’s a great way to get hurt, and that’s a ridiculously difficult catch for any outfielder, let alone a utility infielder with 100 career innings in center. But that’s what Mateo brings to the Orioles. He definitely isn’t their best player. In an ideal world, he’d only play two or three times a week. But when he does play, he’ll stand anywhere and go full bore to help the team, even if it means tumbling head first into the bullpen. In the long grind of the major league season, backups like him are essential.

Sportsmanship note: Carlson did his best to help brace Mateo’s fall, as you can see in the above clip. Very nice of him! The Red Sox relievers came over to check on him, too, and helpfully pointed him to a more conventional way to exit the bullpen after he made it back to his feet:

4. The Full Jordan Walker Experience
I went to my first Busch Stadium game in years last weekend, and I got treated to a gem. The Cardinals won 6-5 thanks to a tie-breaking, eighth-inning single off the bat of Jordan Walker, one of his three RBI on the day:

Walker was named Player of the Game (I don’t know who chooses this, I just heard it on the radio) for his efforts. A burly right fielder with extra-base power is Walker’s ideal form. But this game wasn’t just that. It also featured another part of Walker that Cardinals fans have grown accustomed to in recent years: his baby-giraffe-learning-to-walk moments in the field. The reason the Diamondbacks had the lead in the first place was this Josh Naylor “triple” from the previous inning:

I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you: that’s a bad play. Statcast pegs that one at a 90% catch probability. Walker only had to cover 25 feet, and he had three seconds of hang time to do it. But his first step was back and to his right when it should have been straight in, giving him almost no chance at making the catch. Then he compounded the error by making a long-shot dive that let the ball skip right past him. This position? You never want to be in this position:

I don’t think Walker will ever fully put these defensive lapses behind him; he’s a fish out of water in right, a lifelong third baseman who moved off the position because of Nolan Arenado’s presence in St. Louis. Honestly, though, I’m into it. I love outfielders who make every catch an adventure, guys who are out there because they hit well and DH is taken. Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy Jose Canseco taking one off the melon for a home run. Raul Ibanez? Loved watching him clobber homers in one half-inning and trip over his own feet in the next.

Major leaguers are so dang good these days that this archetype of player is less prevalent, or so it seems to me. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. looked like he might be one of these guys, but he steadily improved his defense and is probably above average in left these days. Nick Castellanos won’t be around forever. The recently optioned JJ Bleday looks overmatched because he’s miscast in center, not because he couldn’t handle a corner position. How am I supposed to enjoy the full range of baseball if I don’t get the occasional fielding miscue as part of the deal?

Unfortunately, Walker isn’t holding up the offensive end of the bargain right now. He’s hitting .215/.270/.310, bringing his career wRC+ down to a desultory 95. That won’t cut it as a bat-first corner outfielder. It would barely cut it as a glove-first corner outfielder, in fact. I’m hoping Walker will pick things up at the plate, though. We know he’s capable of it. He was a top prospect for a reason, and it certainly wasn’t his defense. So Jordan, please, start hitting. The Cardinals could use your bat, and we could all use the delightful experience of watching a major leaguer stumble around a bit, just like we would, while still clearly belonging thanks to his prowess at the plate.

5. Zombie Survival
Writing about extra innings strategy this week brought out a lot of opinions about the evils of the zombie runner, but I couldn’t disagree more. I think that the zombie runner is delightful, not dreary, and that the strategy and urgency it brings to the game is just what we need more of when it comes to extra innings baseball. I think I can use a game from last week to explain why.

The Mets and Dodgers played a barn-burner in the rain on Friday night. An hour and a half delay in the third inning chased both starters, leading to a parade of rarely used relievers handling multiple innings at a time. The Dodgers took a three-run lead into the ninth, but the Mets stormed back to tie it in the bottom half of the inning. We were going extras.

Here’s the first reason that zombie runners are great in the regular season: Did anyone actually want this game to last longer? I’m all for playoff tension, but on a Friday night in May, it’s fair to say that these two teams were evenly matched and dying to finish this one off quickly. The zombie runner makes that more likely – not inevitable, as you’ll see shortly, but more likely. That’s the main reason the rule is in place, and I sympathize with it. I was tired watching this game on TV; I can only imagine what it was like to have been a fan in the stands, or worse still, a player.

That’s an important player health concern, but since fans watch most games from the comfort of the couch, they probably don’t care about that one much. More importantly, you get action right away with the zombie runner. When Edwin Díaz came in for the 10th, Mookie Betts was on second and Freddie Freeman was batting. You might wait innings to get that kind of chance under the regular rules of baseball, but we got it right from the start. Then Díaz hit Freeman and walked Will Smith to load the bases, and we got to see defensive decisions, too. The New York infield played way in with no one out and got Betts at the plate on a force play, then dropped to double play depth and wriggled out of the jam when Francisco Lindor turned two. One half inning, tons of excitement.

The Mets couldn’t break through in the bottom half even with the top of their lineup batting, and the Dodgers didn’t get anything done in the top of the 11th. That led to another decision point: Pete Alonso was the zombie runner, but he runs like an actual zombie, not ideal in a tie game. Carlos Mendoza brought in José Azocar to pinch-run. I think I like this decision, but it’s a tough one. Alonso is much better than Azocar at the plate, and by a much larger margin than Azocar exceeds Alonso as a baserunner. If that spot in the lineup came up again, the Mets would sorely feel Alonso’s absence. And how often is a pinch-runner the difference between an out and a run? But the Mets had a runner in scoring position, and the rules make extra innings games end quickly. Mendoza took the risk and tried to win it right then. I love that decision, and I love that he has to make it – less likely in a game where Alonso doesn’t start the inning on base.

Almost immediately, Dave Roberts made a win-now move of his own. With Anthony Banda on the mound and one out, Roberts intentionally walked Tyrone Taylor to pitch to Francisco Alvarez. That’s weird! Walk a righty to face a righty, and bring the top of the opposing lineup up sooner? It doesn’t sound great. But Roberts wasn’t playing for what would happen later; he was playing to not allow any runs in this inning. Alvarez is easy to double up, so Roberts created the conditions for that to happen. Sure, it was a small boost to the Dodgers’ chances, but that’s what I like about extra innings: Teams have more chances to play for small boosts. Alvarez struck out, the Dodgers escaped, and we played another inning.

After another intentional walk in the top of the 12th – Freeman against a righty, man on third, two outs, righty on deck – Roberts truly pulled out all the stops. He saw that Alonso wasn’t in the lineup anymore and thought “Hey, why face the good hitters?” He walked Lindor to lead off the inning. After a sacrifice bunt from Starling Marte, he walked Juan Soto. That meant Luis Torrens, hitting in Alonso’s spot, had the biggest at-bat of the game, and he grounded into a double play to end the threat. You can’t tell me that strategy isn’t fun.

The game finally ended in the 13th when the Dodgers strung together enough hits to put two runs on the board. Sure, not every extra innings game under the new rules will go 13. Most don’t. But when games go 13 innings these days, those extra innings are a thrill a minute. It’s 4-on-4 overtime in hockey or a shootout in soccer: You have to keep your eyes on the TV, because the game is purposefully and perpetually in a high-offense state.

You don’t have to love that. There are plenty of good reasons not to like it, even. These are questions of taste, and reasonable minds can disagree. But I’m baffled by the segment of fans who don’t like it because they wish baseball was just like it was “back in their day” – nine innings from every starter, a baseball in the ribs if you so much as think about celebrating, plenty of singles, and guys “playing the game the right way.” Pretty much every professional sports league in the world has come up with regular season rule alterations to ensure games end in a reasonable time, and baseball’s is great. Bunts! Plays at the plate! Defensive gambles and risky strategies! This is what I want more of in my baseball, not less, and some of it even lines up with the preferences of those traditionalists. I love the new extra innings rule, and I hope it never changes.

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