TIME TO TRASH ‘UNWRITTEN RULES’
Padres’ Tingler should take mulligan in giving ‘locked in’ Tatis Jr. red light
Because he’s a rookie manager and baseball’s “unwritten rules” have caused many smart leaders to turn dumb, if momentarily, it’s only right to give Jayce Tingler a mulligan for his alarming error Monday night in Texas. But he needs to not do it again.
Tingler ordered his best hitter, Fernando Tatis Jr., to take a 3-0 pitch late in the game with the Padres ahead by seven runs.
Tatis hit the pitch for a grand slam, saying afterward he never saw Tingler’s take sign conveyed by a base coach.
“I was locked in,” Tatis said, using that phrase a few times in explaining how he missed the sign.
Here’s a thought: Do nothing to unlock Fernando Tatis.
For Tatis the light always should be green, never yellow and certainly never red.
Put another way: Stay out of his way, he knows what he’s doing.
Tingler has a lot to offer the
Padres but would do well to use this setback as a teaching moment, not only for himself but for all Padres opponents. The stakes are too high for Tingler to cling to the silly notion that it’s OK if big leaguers take offense when an opponent swings at a 3-0 pitch in a lopsided game, let alone wallops it for a home run.
It won’t be enough for Tingler to just change his policy. He needs to put opponents on notice. Fortunately, that’s easily done. Managers and coaches on opposing teams talk all the time. He can get the word out that’s he opting out of this particular unwritten rule, starting today.
Here’s what Tingler should say to every opponent to make sure there are no misunderstandings on where the Padres stand:
“Just to let you know, we never give Tatis the take sign. If you have a problem with that and decide to throw at him or someone else on our team, we will throw at you. And if any of your hitters swing on 3-0, no matter what the score is, we’re not going to take offense. Bottom line: We’re going to let Tatis swing the bat, whenever he wants. If we mess with him, we’d be cheating the game, we’d be cheating Tatis, we’d be cheating ourselves and the fans who make this a $14-billion industry.”
Matching his friend Tingler’s mistake with one of his own, Rangers manager Chris Woodward apparently took offense to Tatis swinging at the 3-0 pitch and had a Rangers pitcher sail a fastball behind the next Padres hitter.
Taking offense at Tatis swinging on 3-0 is dumb. It fails to put enough stock in several baseball realities, starting with this one: Doing his job, Tatis helped his team by hitting the grand slam.
The game was still in doubt, regardless of MLB simulation data that San Diego’s chances of winning were better than 99% when Tatis batted.
A seven-run lead with six outs to go is no sure thing, especially in today’s baseball.
Go back to Saturday night in Phoenix. The Padres trailed 7-1 entering the eighth inning. They pulled to 7-6, losing only when Jorge Mateo was thrown out trying to score from first base on a single.
You can be sure Woodward and his Rangers coaches knew about that game, and knew also the recent struggles of the Padres bullpen.
It was annoying to watch Tatis have to answer several questions about the unwritten rule book, though the questions had to be asked because of the nonsense served up by the two managers.
Tatis did nothing wrong. On the contrary. With the lead ballooned to 11 runs by his slam, finally, the Padres could exhale. That was tangibly good to the cause of trying to post the franchise’s first winning season in 10 years. The Padres are in the midst of playing 17 games in 17 days. They’d lost five games in a row. Their bullpen has lost three members to injury, most recently closer Kirby Yates.
Expanding the lead afforded Padres reliever Luis Perdomo a chance to exhale the most. Extra leeway in actual big-league games can be good for a ballplayer, especially an uneven performer such as Perdomo. Coincidentally or not, Perdomo broke tendency in both innings, throwing several strikes atop the zone. Perhaps that was a windfall for the sinkerballer.
Tingler and friend Woodward talk often. No doubt they’ll talk Tuesday before the series resumes. Here’s hoping they agree to throw the “3-0” page of the book of unwritten rules where it belongs. In the trash can.