From: vreddy@das.harvard.edu (Venkatesh Reddy)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: running up the score (WAS CRY BABY: PIRATES CRUSHED 15-0)
Date: 17 Aug 92 19:28:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: das.1992Aug17.192807.11152
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard University

In article <1992Aug17.190657.9088@cs.rose-hulman.edu>, rickert@NeXTwork.Rose-Hulman.Edu (John H. Rickert) writes:
|> 
|> In article <92229.222453IO20456@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> Ryan Robbins  
|> <IO20456@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> writes:
|> > were completely slaughtered to cry that the winning team shouldn't
|> > have played to their potential. When you have a big lead, you can af-
|> > ford to take more chances. I see nothing wrong with a hitter trying
|> > to stretch a single into a double. The Pirates player also said that
|> > the Braves "rubbed their [Pirates] nose in it."
|> > 
|> > There's no such thing as running up the score. When any team goes out
|> > onto the playing field, that team's objective is to score as many runs
|> > as possible to beat its opponent. The object of the game is to score
|> > as many runs as possible so as not to get beat by your opponent. If
|> > your team can rack up 15 runs in a game (or 17 in one inning, which
|> > was accomplished by the Red Sox years ago) then that's great for you
|> > and too bad, how sad for your opponent. To run up the score of a base-
|> > ball game is impossible. Unless, of course, you were to eliminate pitch-
|> > in and hit fungoes.
|> 
|> Yes. But. There are strategic differences. Things like base stealing, 
|> sacrificing and stretching singles into doubles can increase a teams 
|> chance of scoring one more run but decrease the overall scoring potential
|> (the loss from outs outweighs the benefits from 'safes').
|> What a team is doing in this case is saying 
|> '*this run* is so important that we're willing to sacrifice our future 
|> scoring potential for it.' 
|> (i.e. they're *not* maximizing theier run scoring potential)
|> I can see this in a 3-3 game in the ninth inning, but I'm not so 
|> sure that it's reasonable with a double-digit lead.
|> 
|> This, of course, begs the question of whether or not the batter actually 
|> was stretching the base hit.
|> 
|> john rickert  		rickert@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu
|> Rick Jospeh Raymond Charles James Richard Lee Thomas Thomas Gorman Thomas
|> John Russell Christopher George Scott Terry Lee Henry Norman Ray Lee Richard
|> James Ray Herbert Thomas Howard Doyle Alexander Johnson Fry

And you're telling us you would be MAD at the Pirates (or whatever team you 
support avidly) if they "ran up the score" against the Braves? If so, then fine,
but if not, then I would say this is a case of sore losing. I am not criticizing
the Pirates for preventing the Braves from sweeping (pretty damn good victory
by them yesterday, despite the fact that I am a Braves fan). And so what if they
didn`t "run up the score". They didn't have the opportunity. The Reds did it to
the Padres, and despite my hope the Reds will drop and not threaten the Braves,
I figure they must've done a damn good job to win 12 - 2. The Pirates gave up
the 15 runs, and the BRaves just kept going. I suppose if a Brave had, with the
bases loaded, swung for home, you would've criticized him for not just trying to 
get a normal hit. C'mon... blowouts are part of the game, and a team is gonna score as many runs as they can... regardless of how they do it. 

-- Venk Reddy --

Born 'n' bred in Georgia and the Carolinas, and damn proud of it!
Go Hornets, Braves, Falcons, and Gamecocks! :)