Before the 2009 baseball season started, Oregon head coach George Horton said his team would be based on pitching and defense. He said it didn’t recruit a “big bopper” power hitter and the team would rely on bunting and speed to score runs. In short, small ball would be the game of choice for this year’s Ducks.
But now that the Ducks have actually played a few games, the question becomes, “What type of team are they?”
Have they stuck to the plan of pitching and defense? Or have they morphed into a hybrid startup that is many things at once?
I’ll give you a hint to the answer. Think fast. Like, really fast. Like, Usain Bolt fast. It’s no joke. This year’s Ducks have taken running to an extreme, and they’re playing their own type of small ball. It’s one where they drop the extra luggage and pack for speed. Who says Ducks are slow? Obviously you’ve never seen one angry or trying to get that piece of bread some kid just threw its way.
These Ducks aren’t angry – just determined. Their piece of bread is second base, and they’ve become one of the best at taking it. Just look at the numbers. So far this season, Oregon has stolen 28 bases on 32 attempts. That’s 2.8 stolen bases per game and a success rating of 87.5 percent of the time.
The level of proficiency is pretty incredible, but here comes the even more telling fact: Oregon has only allowed four stolen bases this year on eight attempts. The team is throwing out 50 percent of base runners when it attempts a steal, and that statistic fits right into what Horton has preached from day one: pitching and defense.
Oregon has it down to a science. You see, the art of preventing stolen bases isn’t about how fast the base runner is (although that helps tremendously), it’s about how quickly the pitcher is getting the ball to the plate. The best defense for holding runners is a quick slide-step to the plate, shrinking the amount of time the base runner has to start running for second before the catcher has the ball.
The other half the pitcher plays is their pickoff move. The better they are at scaring the runner into staying close to the bag, the farther they have to run once he throws home. It’s pretty simple, but the Ducks throw over to first at least three times per at bat when there is a man on first base.
The second part of preventing stolen bases is having a good catcher who can deliver an accurate throw. The Ducks have two with sophomore Mitch Karraker and junior Eddy Rodriguez, who both split time behind the plate depending on who is pitching.
Getting back to the Ducks, their success has depended on studying each pitcher and making smart choices about when to go. Senior left fielder Caleb Tommasini, who is tied for the most stolen bases on the team at seven with junior center fielder Curtis Raulinaitis, says that the team times each pitcher’s delivery to the plate. From this time they can determine if the pitcher is quick or slow to the plate, and come up with a plan. Against Santa Clara last weekend, the pitchers were some of the slower to home plate they’ve seen and that’s why the Ducks were able to run circles around them. It was actually quite amusing to see the Broncos’ pitchers worry so much about the runners on first base that they would sometimes throw more to first base then they would to the batter.
But how do these upstart Ducks fill in with the rest of the elite Pacific-10 Conference?
The answer is quite well, actually. Tommasini and Raulinaitis are tied for second with three other players in the conference in stolen bases, only one behind Arizona sophomore Bryce Ortega who is 8-for-8 for the year on the base paths. And junior right fielder Jett Hart is third in the league with four.
As a team, Oregon is second to Arizona’s 33 stolen bags, and one ahead of Arizona State’s 27. No one else is even close after that.
It’s good to see the Ducks excelling at their game plan. They bunt when they need to, and their defense doesn’t hurt them. And more than once Tommasini has gotten on base, stolen his way to second, been bunted to third, and then scored on a hit or a sacrifice.
However, they need to become more consistent from the plate. The team has a .247 batting average, and has a flair for striking out, or not getting the guy home from third base after he’s gotten there. Too often they swing at the first pitch and make the pitcher only throw four or five pitches in an inning. The team is eager to run, obviously, but the team needs base runners in order to steal bases.
Like Horton says, “You can’t steal first base.”
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