Every year we watch with great anticipation the Mexican representative in the Little League World Series. Almost all of the representatives from Mexico over recent years come from the traditional strongholds of baseball along the northern border or the Pacific Coast. They bring a distinct batting philosophy to the plate and it involves Mexican “baseball machismo.” Coaches specifically teach kids that the walk is for the weak. The idea is if you don’t hit the ball all the time, you will never by scouted and advance in the sport. As a result, many of the Mexican teams lack plate discipline, don’t see many pitches, choose low percentage pitches to hit, and don’t take many walks. I can’t tell you how many coaches I have heard tell their kids, “Base por bola no me sirve” (the base on ball doesn’t work for me), which when translated into little kid speak is “swing or else.”

Every year it seems that the Mexican team has great success in the initial rounds, raising the hopes of a country . . . until they confront the Japanese. The Japanese have long since cracked the code of Mexican baseball employing a strategy of using the Mexican team’s aggressiveness against itself. Japanese pitchers throw high fastballs, curves away, curves in the dirt, anything outside of the zone because they know the Mexican kids are just dying to hit the ball and will quickly become frustrated. Add in a pressure situation with little kids and the strike zone gets even bigger. Japan has consistently beaten Mexico in recent years employing this simple philosophy – use an opponent’s aggressiveness to their own detriment.

Being a Dodger fan, it is painful to see the Giants again in the World Series. But as coach and pitcher, I love to see a pitching plan executed in such a brilliant fashion. The Kansas City Royals are an incredible walking conundrum – an inexperienced team that took the fewest walks but had the most stolen bases in the major leagues.  As a team, they hit the fewest home runs in the major leagues but in the post season hit quite a few.  Apparently this is the first time  ever that a team that was last home runs and last in base on balls has made it to the World Series.

As was evident from the early innings Bumgarner executed a plan to prey on his opponent’s aggressiveness by giving them little to hit and constantly changing the batter’s plane of vision to tempt them with the forbidden or at least hard to hit fruit. Taking into consideration the youth of the Royals lineup and the pressure of the moment with the first World Series game in a long time in Kansas City, Bumgarner stuck to his effective game plan. What looks to the casual observer as lack of command by the Giant’s left-hander was actually opening up each batter’s personal strike zone to prey on their own aggressiveness.

Giants ace Madison Bumgarner took a page out of the Japanese Little League team’s book to beat a youthful and aggressive Royals team on Tuesday night. (Photo credit – Dilip Vishwanat)

The best example of the execution of this strategy was in the bottom of the 3rd and one of the few scoring opportunities that the Royals had on the night. Infante reaches on an error and Moustakas doubles with no outs. Bumgarner masterfully gets both Escobar and Aoki to strike out on general buffet of pitches outside the zone. After working a full count, Bumgarner issued the only walk of the night to Cain on a pitch away and outside of the zone. Eric Hosmer comes up and you could see that he wanted to be the hero as he has been throughout the post season. Hosmer swings weakly on the first pitch, a curve outside of the zone and softly grounds out to Panik to end the inning.

With two outs and the bases loaded, Bumgarner got Eric Hosmer to chase the first pitch he saw and ground out weakly to second base. (Photo credit – Peter G. Aiken)

As a manager in that situation, you cringe a little bit inside. Bumgarner issues a walk to load the bases after a full count and your next hitter gets fooled on the first pitch. That was a game-changing at bat. If Hosmer works the count a bit and takes a few pitches (that were most likely going to be balls), he puts the pressure back on Bumgarner to come back to the strike zone. If Hosmer gets a hit, the Royals are right back in it. But instead gets Hosmer weakly hits a pitcher’s pitch on the first attempt and the inning is over.

Youth, pressure, expectations, and a lack of plate discipline are a bad combination but no other team had seemed to take advantage of this until last night. I haven’t been able to see Bumgarner’s pitching spray charts but it has to look like a Jackson Pollack painting with dots all over the place. It is a bit of a tightrope act to implement this strategy because if you give up too many walks, you are releasing the KC Rabbits to wreak havoc on the base path. But that didn’t happen. Controlled wildness perfectly executed with 3 hits, 1 walk, and 5 strikeouts over 7 innings of work. Apart from Perez’s homerun in the 7th, Bumgarner played the Royals against themselves just like the Japanese have frustratingly done to the Mexican kids over the past few years – pulling out the stick to wildly wave at the piñata.

On the other hand, I am not completely sure, but . . . I actually think I saw Pablo Sandoval hold off on a few pitches outside of the zone. It was odd and I had to look more than once, but it was true. He looked relaxed and confident, selectively swinging at high percentage pitches. When asked about it after the game, the Panda simply commented something to the effect that he felt very comfortable in this environment. Experience is trumping youthful vigor. This strategy worked very well in game one. We will see if it works again as Peavy takes the mound tonight. After the masterful performance last night, I begrudgingly have to say with a heavy heart, “Well done, Giants. Well done.”