The Reds Might Be the Best Base Running Team in the League

and to give Dusty credit (shudder….) they are 12-4 since his close door meeting after the lackluster Saturday game against SD.

the Reds have made 2 outs at home on hits in 54 chances. So, none of the credit goes to Berry. :)

And I would like to advance the theory that Brian B is attending games disguised as Mark Berry.

with how many 1st to third and first to home plays there have been. For example, on Monday, Votto scored from first on a Rolen double. I was pretty impressed by that since Votto is not the fastest guy in the world, though he is a good base runner. It forces outfielders to make plays. That kind of pressure is sustainable.

835 OPS overall with RISP. Team OPS is 741.

I think it was in the Ken Burns documentary. Basically, Cobb said that you should almost always take the extra base, especially trying to score from second. His argument was that the defense has to have like 6 things go perfectly — a clean catch, a clean throw to the cutoff man, a clean catch from the cutoff man, a perfect throw to the catcher, a clean catch, and a perfect tag. If any of those things go wrong, you score a run.

Granted, Cobb was fast and the fielders played without gloves. But I think there may still be something to the line of reasoning. And that argues FOR the aggressive baserunning, and against the straight steals and hit-n-runs, as you say Pops.

Basically, whenever THEY have to do a lot more things right than YOU do, it’s a good idea to be aggressive.
So, I think Gomes was right to try to score the other night from second with 2 outs, up by one run. The risk/reward was completely in his favor. (Plus, he was safe.)

really bad pitching.

Could any of this newfound skill on the basepaths be attributed to Joe Morgan: Advisor? Little Joe certainly made a lot of hay by being aggressive on the basepaths and breaking the pitcher down mentally. Is it just a coincidence that we’ve brought him in as an advisor, and now are very good at being aggressive on the basepaths?

For one, I didn’t break it down by situation. The Reds could be going first to third when it doesn’t really matter (though have they really had many of those situations this year?). I’d guess that with the small amount of data that we are looking at, big mistakes made at critical times could have a bigger impact on the overall run value and cancel out a lot of the positive.

This is why I used the word “might” in my title. We’re way too early and the Reds are making too many SB related outs for me to give them the title outright. However, I believe it is an important factor for the Reds that they are being aggressive on hits to the outfield and avoiding running into outs at the same time. I believe it is something that can make up for their at-the-plate issues, at least a little bit. That is, assuming they don’t continue to run themselves into out on stolen bases and pick offs.

and Jay Bruce has, unrelatedly, really impressed me with his baserunning. His baseball instincts seem to be off the charts…he’s gonna be a lot of fun when his hitting is consistently hot.