The plate appearance that produced an Anthony Rizzo home run Monday night rated high in the career of the slugger, and demonstrated something Joe Maddon tries to impress on the Cubs. Rizzo fouled off five 2-2 pitches against the left-hander Steven Matz before the home run:
The only person happier than Rizzo after the home run might have been his manager. Joe Maddon loves the idea of using the at-bat as a teaching moment for his team as well as players throughout the organization. With two strikes, Rizzo would have been happy with a single, but he got much more.
“That is a fabulous at-bat,” Maddon said. “That’s what we want to be about. That two-strike at-bat.
“When you continually frustrate a pitcher with two strikes he gets to the point ‘Where am I supposed to throw this pitch?’ That’s where their tendency is to make a mistake.”
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Why is this important? Because working counts has been a weakness for the Cubs against good pitchers going back to their playoff series against these very Mets.
“You can’t go up there full throttle with two strikes,” Maddon said. “If you want to take that same 0-0 approach with two strikes you’re going to come back to the bench a lot.”
When I was young coaches would tell us to choke up with two strikes and try to make contact. I don’t think anyone on the Cubs is choking up, but concentrating on contact is a very good strategy.
The Cubs beat the Mets 5-1.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/29XcV2k
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