Saw this in a high school game last night and found it fascinating as an intellectual coaching exercise. (Is that an oxymoron?) Anyway, here's the situation.
Home team is down 3-1 in the bottom of the seventh in a Regional game. The winner continues, the loser goes home. Home team was down 3-0 going into the inning, but a double turned into a run when the visitors made two throwing errors to bring a not very fast runner home.
After that, visitors wind up with runners on first and third with two outs. The number 7 hitter is up to bat. R1 has good speed, but not blinding speed. Home team hasn't had many runners on base so they haven't tried the catcher yet. Pitcher is not particularly dominating, but she's looked mighty good today. So here's the question.
Do you attempt to steal the runner to second to put the tying run in scoring position? Obviously if you fail you're done. But if the visitors throw the ball away on the attempt, you probably score the runner on third, and maybe advance the runner on first all the way to third.
The other big question, of course, is will the visitors throw down at all, or will they give you the freebie to avoid complications and focus on the runner?
What would you do?
Home team is down 3-1 in the bottom of the seventh in a Regional game. The winner continues, the loser goes home. Home team was down 3-0 going into the inning, but a double turned into a run when the visitors made two throwing errors to bring a not very fast runner home.
After that, visitors wind up with runners on first and third with two outs. The number 7 hitter is up to bat. R1 has good speed, but not blinding speed. Home team hasn't had many runners on base so they haven't tried the catcher yet. Pitcher is not particularly dominating, but she's looked mighty good today. So here's the question.
Do you attempt to steal the runner to second to put the tying run in scoring position? Obviously if you fail you're done. But if the visitors throw the ball away on the attempt, you probably score the runner on third, and maybe advance the runner on first all the way to third.
The other big question, of course, is will the visitors throw down at all, or will they give you the freebie to avoid complications and focus on the runner?
What would you do?