To issue a (intentional) walk or not, that is the question

It came up again during Game 1 of the AL Wild Card round playoffs when the Orioles hosted the Kansas City Royals. The Orioles, who issue some of the fewest intentional walks in the majors, had a chance to walk Bobby Witt Jr. with a base open in a key spot.

They pitched to Witt with a man on third and two outs in the top of the sixth of a 0-0 game. Witt singled to left off Corbin Burnes to score the game’s only run as Kansas City beat the Orioles 1-0 and they were halfway to a series win.

Witt batted the next day with runners on first and third and two outs in the sixth of a 1-1 tie. This time he singled in a go-ahead run again. There was a base open here – just not first-base – so that would have been a real unconventional intentional walk to load the bases, but it was there if the O’s wanted it.

The O’s were not beat in that series because they pitched to Witt, it was more about scoring one run in two games. But when you are not scoring, every run against you seems magnified.

I would have walked Witt in that spot in Game 1.

I wrote on this topic in August about the O’s reluctance it seems to issue an intentional walk. Just four teams this season issued fewer IBB than the Orioles.

2 – Houston

7 – New York Mets, Chicago Cubs

8 – New York Yankees

9 – Orioles, Philadelphia

11 – Cleveland, Detroit, Washington, San Francisco

The Yankees' Aaron Judge led the majors drawing 20 intentional walks this year. He walked 13 times in 12 games versus the Orioles, but no intentional walks were in that mix.

Somewhat surprisingly, three AL East teams (Orioles, Boston and Tampa Bay) did not issue even one intentional walk to Judge while Toronto did that five times. Judge posted a .784 OPS versus the Rays, 1.070 versus Toronto, 1.144 against Boston and he ripped the Orioles for an OPS of 1.451, going 11-for-33 with six homers and 11 RBIs. They walked him a lot, but he still beat them often.

Houston's Yordan Alvarez was second in the majors, drawing 16 IBB and Rafeal Devers of Boston was third with 14.

The O’s did not intentionally walk Devers either and he produced a .906 OPS against them. New York walked him intentionally twice and his OPS was 1.035. He was walked once by Tampa Bay with an OPS of .674 and no times by Toronto with an OPS of .957.

The Los Angeles Angels and Oakland Athletics tied for the MLB lead issuing 34 intentional walks. Arizona was next with 32 while Boston and Texas were next at 26 each.

The O’s nine intentional walks for the year meant they walked someone once every 18 games or once every 674 plate appearances.

During an August interview in Toronto, I asked manager Brandon Hyde about a specific instance when facing Vlad Guerrero Jr. The O’s didn’t walk him but he lined out to not score a run. Hyde talked about the club’s general thoughts on intentional walks.

“You know putting more runners on base sometimes isn’t always the best,” said Hyde then. “And one of the things we are not good at and something we can always improve on is being able to navigate around a hitter or being able to get a hitter in chase mode from the start. That takes a little bit of time and development honestly, so you are not just having to intentionally walk somebody."

The O's grudgingly walk batters on purpose and seem to prefer to get them to chase a pitch or hit the pitcher's pitch in tough spots as Hyde described. 

“You see us, we don’t get intentionally walked a lot. But there are instances where we get pitched, they're trying to strike us out from the first pitch and if they walk us, they walk us.," said Hyde. 

He is right about the O’s not getting walked much, just 14 times with only four AL teams getting less. The AL leaders in drawing intentional walks this year was Boston and Cleveland with 30 each. Los Angeles Angels batters walked just four times.

Hyde did seem to indicate he felt there are times the club should or must walk a hitter.

“But there are definitely certain situations in the game where we can’t have this guy beat us in this spot and it’s an area we can always improve,” he said.

He also noted the club can get burned in trying to pitch a big bopper carefully. Sometimes that plan just doesn’t work.

“Yeah, and sometimes the ball is right in the middle of the plate. But we see that against us too,” he said.