I really like Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven. They are folksy and personable and are just as homerish as one would expect from a small market team with tenured announcers. We complain about Hawk Harrelson here in the Twin Cities, but I assure you non Minnesotans complain about Bert Blyleven.
They are, however, painfully old school. I don’t know if it is just something that I noticed this year, but it seems that at least once a game, Bremer will suggest that he thinks a bunt or a hit and run strategy is the right call. Whenever there is a runner on base and a light hitting batter at the plate, like Jamey Carroll or Ben Revere, its BUNT BUNT BUNT. Blyleven usually goes along with it.
But not today! Roy Smalley filled in for Blyleven in the Twins booth, and he would almost always shoot down Bremer’s nonsense for what it was. Nope! There is no good mathematical reason to bunt ever, unless there is someone on second in the late innings of a low scoring game with nobody out. Never in the first inning of a game with mediocre pitchers. Smalley’s presence was a boon to logical thinking people everywhere.
Bremer likely still looks at the early 2000s as the halcyon days of the Twins. Baseball the right way and all that, because the Twins finally turned it around. Back then, they could afford to make stupid mistakes, like bunt early and go for hit and runs against mediocre pitching, because they had the pitching for it. Now they need to go blow for blow with opponents if they want to win.
The Twins won today, because they outslugged the A’s, and Francisco Liriano came back to pitch a gem. Ben Revere bunted in the first inning, but it didn’t do a thing but cost the team an out. Just like Roy Smalley suggested.
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