Watching last nights game got me thinking, when did the Intentional Walk become all the rage? During the entire 162 game regular season the St. Louis Cardinals intentionally walked a total of 44 batters while the Texas Rangers intentionally walked just 21. The intentional walk is something normally reserved for a special occasion, like the pitcher is coming up next, or the winning run is on 2nd in the 9th inning and you want to set up a force play. Last night alone the two teams combined for a total of 6 intentional walks and instead of strategy it just seemed like the casual thing to do.
In some cases these walks backfired and in some cases they were completely befuddling. The Rangers decided, **** it, we're not pitching to Albert Pujols in any scenario. Hell we're not even going to pitch to him with 2 outs and no one on. Conveniently for Ron Washington, of the three times they intentionally walked Pujols the only time Holliday didn't do something horrific, li...
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