Texas Rangers Often Swing For The Fences Opening With “Take Your Base” Featuring Ian Kinsler

Posted on May 29th, 2009 11:21pm by Jeff Miller
Filed under Baseball, Texas Rangers

ARLINGTON - “Walk’s as good as a hit” is not what’s ringing inside Ian Kinsler’s head. But sometimes, like in Friday’s Rangers sweep of Oakland, it’s the prudent path to reach base his first time up.

Kinsler walked to open the bottom of the first in each game. Scored each time. When he has walked in his first plate appearance this season, the Rangers are 4-1. When he had reached base by any means in his first time up, the Rangers are 14-4.

“They didn’t throw anything there for him to swing at, so he showed more patience,” manager Ron Washington said. “It started a rally. It’s not that he goes up there looking for walk. But when they don’t throw him anything, he did what he needed to to get on base. And that’s huge.”

The breakdown of 18 times that Kinsler has reached to start the Rangers’ attack: five walks, two HBPs, four singles, three doubles, one triple and three home runs.

Thirteen times a first inning that began with Kinsler getting on resulted in Texas scoring. The Rangers have won 10 of those games.

The walk in the opener off Josh Outman on five pitches allowed Andruw Jones to bat with two out and single to short. Nelson Cruz followed with a two-run double off that banged off the Kia Motors sign in right-center. Emergency starter Tommy Hunter kept the Rangers in the game, down only 3-2 after six innings. Then Texas played long-ball against the Oakland bullpen with home runs by Marlon Byrd, Jones and Cruz for the 6-3 win.

In the nightcap, Kinsler walked on four pitches from Edgar Gonzalez. Before the Rangers took the field again, they’d batted around and erased a 1-0 deficit with four runs. Scott Feldman, Jason Jennings and C.J. Wilson combined over the next eight innings to limit Oakland to one more run on three hits.

“Leading off any inning with a walk is productive,” Kinsler said. “I’m still looking up there for a pitch to hit. I’m never going up there looking for a walk. The second game, he didn’t throw it in the zone in four pitches. It wasn’t that difficult. I’m not going up there looking for a walk to jump-start a team.”

But when that’s the most realistic means possible, the results are telling.

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7 Comments to “Texas Rangers Often Swing For The Fences Opening With “Take Your Base” Featuring Ian Kinsler”
  • Section 339 @ May 29th, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    Kins is one bad MF’er…

  • morgan @ May 30th, 2009 at 12:16 am

    @Section 339: agreed

    also, it seems like he and mike young are the only two hitters who are having any success at 1) recognizing pitches out of the pitcher’s hand and 2)differentiating borderline pitches that are close to being strikes, but taking them when they’re a couple inches off the black. When all the others are at the plate it seems like they are just swinging at anything remotely close to the plate; could be related to the All-or-Nothing mentality alot of the batters seem to have (see the previous stories on the A.O.N stats).

  • morgan @ May 30th, 2009 at 12:17 am

    another point more related to the story: when kins gets on base they instantly become a much more potent offense because the pitcher has to worry about or at least recognize his speed when hes on base

  • becca @ May 30th, 2009 at 11:48 am

    i swear i kept saying to myself “a walk’s as good as a hit” everytime the pitch count was getting high during the at bats during the games. i felt like my youth league coach back when i was 12. but hey, it still can lead to production!

  • KC @ May 30th, 2009 at 2:45 pm

    It appears to me that there are some signs of discipline among other players besides Ian and Michael. David Murphy, Andruw Jones, and during his recent hot streak, Nelson Cruz have all been working the count pretty well. And for Nelson in particular, laying off of those low outside pitches, especially the off-speed stuff, is absolutley key. More than anyone on the team right now, he has to instill fear in a pitcher who is forced to throw him a fastball strike. And I have even noticed Josh laying off those inevitable throwaway pitches he is given on the first pitch, although it looks like it’s killing him to have to do it. Here’s to hoping this is a season long trend of making the pitcher give you what you want, or just taking a walk to first.

  • morgan @ May 30th, 2009 at 5:24 pm

    There are definitely signs of it, and its still only 2 months into the season so I feel certain they will adjust because they are professionals. It’s just a concern that they must address, especially Rudy Jaramillo when they’re working on their mentality at the plate.

  • Jon @ May 31st, 2009 at 9:17 am

    In some was a walk is better then a hit.

    If a player walks it sends a message to the pitcher that he is not going to get the easy out. He will have to throw in the strike zone. Once the pitcher starts throwing strikes it shrinks the zone by at least a third from just a one ball diameter outside the zone. Also it allows the hitter to start looking for his favorite pitch to hit since strike zone placement is an iffy thing.