Now, Everyone Is on the Take

In an Effort to Increase Opposing Pitch Counts, Teams Stress Patience at the Plate

Back when he was the third baseman for the Oakland Athletics' mini-dynasty of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Carney Lansford and some of his lineup-mates lived by one creed. "Our number one rule was, 'Thou shalt not let gas pass,' " Lansford recalled. Rather than a gastrointestinal reference, the rule decreed Lansford and his comrades should swing early and often, particularly at fastballs.

Now, as the hitting coach of the San Francisco Giants, Lansford is shocked and appalled by how much gas passes in today's game.

"If you tried to get ahead of us with a fastball, we were going to take a whack at it," Lansford said. "Nowadays, hitters take a lot of those pitches. They're trying to get the pitcher's pitch count up, but it takes a special hitter at this level to hit in pitcher's counts. When I played, I never wanted to get to pitcher's counts. I see guys take 2-0 fastballs and 3-1 fastballs that look like they're pretty good pitches to hit -- and that was a no-no back then. In fact, it still drives me crazy to see guys do that."

Sorry, Carney. There is no going back from this trend, which Baltimore Orioles President Andy MacPhail calls "one of the most important shifts in baseball in the past several years." The Art of Taking Pitches has very subtly changed the way the game is played.

Put simply, more and more teams are emphasizing the importance of "working the count" -- taking pitches, driving up a pitcher's pitch count, never swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone and having the confidence to hit with two strikes.

MacPhail calls it a "significant shift in tactical approach" that is quickly becoming universal, and many of the changes in baseball that are most lamented -- the increasing times of games, the demise of the complete game, the focus on pitch counts -- can be traced, at least in part, to that shift.

Not so many years ago, every lineup had one or two hitters who specialized in hitting deep in the count. And then came the Oakland teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s -- a decade after Lansford's heyday -- and their "Moneyball" approach, made famous by Michael Lewis's book of that title. Those A's teams, led by prolific pitch-takers Jason Giambi, John Jaha and Matt Stairs, turned the art of taking pitches into an organizational philosophy.

The ultimate expression of the art form may have been the Boston Red Sox title teams of 2004 and 2007, with their lineups full of grind-it-out hitters -- from sluggers to light-hitting role players, all of them intent on working over opposing starters. Last year, in fact, the four League Championship Series participants (Boston, Cleveland, Colorado and Arizona) all finished in the top three in their respective leagues in pitches per plate appearance.

"That's why we got beat" by Boston in the 2004 World Series, Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan said. "We had the kind of pitching staff that had to get outs outside of the strike zone, and [the Red Sox] weren't biting. . . . You get a guy who throws 95 miles per hour and has a power sinker -- he can take advantage of hitters. He can be aggressive in the strike zone and make the hitters swing the bat.

"It's the guy who has to work the edges of the plate with off-speed pitches and moving fastballs -- they count on the hitter going out of the strike zone a lot. And if you have a team that as a whole is very disciplined at controlling the strike zone, it's a disadvantage to that guy who works the outside borders of the strike zone."

The Red Sox, it is safe to say, have no qualms whatsoever about letting gas pass.