Walking Corey Seager With the Bases Loaded?!?

Hey, what's going on guys? So I've gotten this question a lot and I haven't had time to get to it lately. But if you're watching the Rangers-Angels game, Corey Seager got up in the fourth inning with one out, bases loaded, Rangers were already winning, and manager Joe Maddon decides to intentionally walk Corey Seager to score a run. Now when it happened, everyone in the ballpark, announcers, Mike Trout, no one knew what the hell was going on. What is the reason for the intentional walk here? And so first thing is I want to get your opinion on it. I'll give you my opinion in a second. Since 1950, only three players have been intentionally walked with the bases loaded. The first one that comes to mind for most people is Barry Bonds. Buck Showalter actually walked him. In that game, the Giants were losing by two runs with the bases loaded, two outs, and a ninth. And so you walk Barry Bonds, you give up one run. Now it's a one-run game, but now you can get the next guy out and win the game. And Barry at that point is one of the most dangerous hitters in the league. And so in that situation, I get it. The other situation was actually Joe Maddon again. It was with Josh Hamilton at the plate when Maddon was managing the raise. And in that game, a similar type of situation where it's a four-run game, Josh Hamilton is the tying run at the plate, two outs and a ninth. Instead of letting him hit a grand slam to tie the game, they walk him, and then they end up winning the game. So those two situations, I get it. This one was a really wacky one. It's early in the game. Your team's already losing. You have Corey Seager at the plate. It's not Barry Bonds. Corey Seager's a good player. I'll look at his stats right here. I wrote them down. He's sitting 305 with a 380 on base and a 520 slug. So he's a really good player. But he's not Barry Bonds. And the situation's just a weird situation. It wasn't late in the game. Your team's not winning. You're adding another run on. The Rangers actually end up scoring three in that inning after this. Now I will say in the end, maybe Joe Maddon is a genius because the Angels did come back and end up winning later in the game. Here's Maddon's reasoning for it. They asked him after the game. And he said, quote, I thought by walking Seager, I would avoid the big blow. And just to stir up the group, quite frankly, it's not something you normally do. I thought by going up there and doing something like that, the team might respond to something like that. So two separate reasons. The first one is the big blow, right? Seager maybe hits a grand slam, puts the game out of reach. The chances of him hitting a grand slam, pretty low. And so even if he had to double, scores a couple of runs, you're walking him, you're giving up a run anyway. Me personally, I'm pitching to him. Barry Bonds, back when Barry Bonds was like video game Barry Bonds, where basically he would get one pitch a game to hit and hit a home run, then maybe I'm not pitching to him. But in this situation, me personally, I'm pitching to Corey Seager. Now he mentions another thing about trying to get his team going a little bit. Now that's an interesting strategy, thinking that intentionally walking a batter in this situation would get the team, I guess, fired up, more locked in, more focused, get them going. I'm not sure exactly how. I haven't followed the Angels very closely so far this season, but I find that interesting that you would need to do that to get them going. And so again, me personally, I'm not, I think it's an odd situation there. I'm pitching to him. I'm not walking him. What would you guys do? Did you have an issue with this? Did you find this strange? I didn't see this live. Someone sent me the video and said, check this out. And I watched it and said, what the hell's going on right now? So it was really, really strange. But in the end, I guess it worked out. So that's why I guess he's managing in the big leagues and I'm coaching in high school. Just kidding. But maybe. Anyways, let me know in the comment section below what you guys think about this. Did you like it? Did you not like it? Let me know if I'm missing something, if there's something going on that I didn't mention. But this is all the information I was able to gather. So that's all we have. Thanks for watching. Subscribe to the channel. Hit the notification bell. Give it a thumbs up. All that good stuff. We'll talk to you later. If you've got hitters that you're looking to improve before the start of next season, this is essential for you. Matt Antonelli here, former major league player, first round pick, and college coach. 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