It wasn’t a great series for the Blue Jays in front of close-to-capacity crowds in Texas. The Rangers, it shouldn’t need to be said, are trash and, as such, losing to them is egregious1.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a few fine days, including two hits during Wednesday’s getaway day matinee. The first was a memorable bullet, testament to the magic of hitting the ball really damn hard. You don’t have to worship at the alter of exit velocity to note how difficult it is to field a baseball that’s passes you before you’re able to move.
A later at bat produced a soft serve single to centre field but Vlad Jr’s final plate appearance of the day deserves further scrutiny of both process and result. With the Blue Jays trailing by a run in the 8th inning, Guerrero came to the plate with the tying run on first base. Noted villain Matt Bush was on the mound to greet him, falling behind the Jays slugger before coaxing a lazy fly for the third out of the eighth inning.
“Fell behind” is my way of burying the lede. It wasn’t just that Vlad Jr was ahead in the count, he was up 3-0 when he got a little greedy, offering a mighty swing only to get jammed, breaking his bat and ending the inning and the Blue Jays high leverage mini-rally against a potentially vulnerable pitcher.
Letting fly 3-0 is a great way to draw the ire of some fans. This outcome represents the worst case scenario, the ultimate risk realized in the risk/reward matrix. It’s red meat for pundits and pissed off fans simply because it didn’t work out. But was the process all that bad?
While it can feel like breaking one of baseball myriad unwritten rules, swinging at 3-0 pitches can be quite fruitful. The league hit .366/.937/.894 with the count 3-0 last season. Hitters posted an expected slugging percentage around .800 over the last few years in 3-0 counts, with an xwOBA over .600. It’s not a bad time to swing if you get a meaty pitch to hit!
Before Wednesday, Guerrero faced 36 3-0 pitches in his career. He took 27 of those pitches, resulting in nine walks and 18 called strikes. He swung the bat nine times, fouling off four, swinging through two and foul tipping one.
Twice he put the ball in play and twice he reached base safely. In his third-ever game in the big leagues, he swung 3-0 in the ninth inning of a tie game against Joakim Soria, lining a single to centre off the end of the bat.
Then, in August 2020, he doubled just inside the third base bag off of Red Sox pitcher Austin Brice with the bases loaded, driving in three runs with a hot shot on the ground.
Of those 36 pitches, 20 were four-seamers, 11 were two-seamers or sinkers, two cutters plus he saw one slider, one curve, one changeup and even one knuckleball for good measure.
All of this is to say there’s plenty of good reasons to swing 3-0. Doubly so if your name is Vladimir Guerrero Jr, you feel confident and healthy at the plate and if you have a chance to do damage (which is almost always for Vlad) and win your club a game.
That said, the first three pitches of this at bat suggest Bush had very little intention of giving Vlad Jr anything to hit - especially when we note that the Rangers’ pitching coach came out to chat with his hurler before the at bat began. During this mound meeting, Rangers TV guy and former pitcher C.J. Nitkowski suggested the advice could’ve been along the lines of “heavy with the slider, no fastballs in the zone” if they were wary of Vlad Jr beating them.
At the risk of post-hoc analysis, it certainly appears that was the game plan. While Bush isn’t exactly a great command guy, the 3-0 offering up-and-in was a good pitch in a good spot, an invitation for Guerrero to get himself out, an offer Vlad shamefully accepted.
If you asked him, I feel strongly that the Blue Jays first baseman would note that he was looking fastball (given the count and record of three straight bad misses with the slider by Bush.) He probably key holed middle-in and, in the end, got exactly that. Credit is due2 to Bush for putting the fastball in a place that made it hard for Guerrero to drive, even if it wasn’t done on purpose.
Will this change Vlad Jr’s approach next time he finds himself in a similar spot? I hope not. Hopefully he wouldn’t offer at such a tough pitch next time, saving his hacks for something that catches a little more of the plate or is perhaps a little more down in the zone. But aggression is good, especially for one of the team’s best hitters. If any pitcher thinks they can serve up a get-me-over cookie and steal a strike, they are wrong. Planting that seed of doubt increases the chances that a pitcher gets too fine and misses badly.
The only downside to swinging 3-0 is you make an out. It might send the Monday morning quarterback scurrying but most of the time it’s a fine idea. Hopefully Vlad Jr continues to be aggressive in these situations and the team encourages him to hunt for hittable pitches to mash, no matter the count. I suppose a little more selectivity is the key, but that’s true of everything.
Their fans and fanalysts, so disgusted with the product on the field, spent most of their home opener wondering aloud who the Rangers might take with a top three draft pick next June.
Gross