Was Santiago Casilla feeling allergic to the batter's box? That's certainly what it looked like when the San Francisco Giants reliever, uh, stepped in for his first career plate appearance against Florida's Jose Ceda.
Talk about exploring the space. You could have lined a few Joe Wests shoulder to shoulder in the area between Casilla and the plate's inside corner.�As for the bat planted on Casilla's shoulder: The last time we saw someone so willing to take every pitch, Kelly Leak was trying to prove a point to Morris Buttermaker.
But if we thought the comedy ended at Casilla's stance and unwillingness to swing the bat ? or even pretend like he was going to try ? we weren't anticipating the possibility of Ceda upping the hilarity quotient during San Francisco's 5-2 win. Ceda somehow walked Casilla on four straight pitches, giving his colleague a perfect 1.000 OBP for his career.
As Drew Fairservice writes on The Score, "If [that] isn't a passive-aggressive attempt to publicly quit your job, I don't know what is."
It's actually not that hard of an approach to understand. Casilla wasn't swinging under orders from manager Bruce Bochy, who wanted to give closer Brian Wilson a day off and needed Casilla healthy enough to take the mound in the bottom of the inning.
But in seemingly surrendering the plate appearance, Casilla and the Giants may have engaged in a bit of trickery imported from the Japanese leagues.�Andre Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News has more:
Ryan Vogelsong said pitchers in Japan did the same thing when they batted against him, and it actually threw him off.
"It's not a bad thought," Bochy said. "Let's put all our hitters at the end of the box."
And give them broom handles, maybe.
What was Casilla thinking by standing so far outside?
"I was looking for a fastball away," he said, unsmiling.
SB Nation's Jeff Sullivan calls the play "the worst plate appearance in baseball history," but I'm not sure how you argue with something that ended with Casilla at first base.
Plus, anything that reminds me of a particular strategy in RBI Baseball ? set up in the far end of the box, induce your opponent's pitcher to hit the outside edge before you move your fat little video guy quickly�closer to the plate ? has win written all over it.
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