Second Guessing Scioscia – Week 16: Sacrifice bunting can be hazardous to your health

Welcome to Second-Guessing Scioscia, our look back at some of the questionable decisions that Mike Scioscia made in the last week. This isn’t because we dislike Scioscia, in fact, MWAH is officially pro-Scioscia. However, we do realize that he is not infallible and hope to use this series to bring light to the decisions in which he went wrong (or was at least perceived to be wrong by some). At a minimum, it will help us all come to a better understanding of what goes on during games but maybe, just maybe, we’ll get lucky and this will somehow make Scioscia more self-aware of his more chronic managerial missteps.

It was a short week for Scioscia and his Angels, but it was also a painful week, for one player at least. It is quite one thing to have managerial missteps hurt the Angels’ odds at winning, but it is quite another when it physically hurts a player. Look at what you did, Scioscia. LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID!

7/12/14 – Sacrifice bunting can be hazardous to your health
[mlbvideo id=”34535979″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /] This is a mess. A bloody mess. And, no, I’m not talking about Cowgill’s face, though I see why you might have thought that. What happened to Collin is really unfortunate. All he was trying to do was follow his manager’s orders. That problem is that his manager’s orders were really stupid.

Keep in mind the situation here. It is the bottom of the eighth inning, a runner on second, nobody out and the Angels lead by three. BY THREE! Yet for some reason Scioscia feels the need to drop down a sac bunt so he can play for one run. I have no idea why he thought that one run mattered so much. The win expectancy for the Angels is already at 95% here. The game wasn’t in the balance by any stretch of the imagination. Why reduce the overall run expectancy of the situation by giving up an out just to put the sacrifice fly in order? And why do it against a reliever making his second MLB appearance ever?

Well, the Baseball Gods did not smile upon Scioscia’s tactics and smote Collin Cowgill as punishment for Scioscia’s sins. They smote him right in the face.

VERDICT: