Minimizing the big inning. (baseball technique)

ONE OF THE MOST COMMON complaints about high school baseball is that it tends to drag. Many attempts have been made to speed it up by umpire associations, coaches organizations, and individual conferences.

I believe that coaches can effectively address the problem by teaching hitters to be more aggressive, pitchers to work fast and throw strikes, and all players to hustle on and off the field between innings.

Having pointed this out, I would also like to say that you cannot rush everything. There comes a time when you have to slow down, particularly in crucial defensive situations when you are trying to escape a big inning. The situations that demand special attention are bunt situations and full-count situations that have forced runners in scoring position.

With runners on first or first and second and less than two outs, the high school coach can never be sure that the opponents won't be bunting, especially with the bottom part of the batting order up.

Most college and professional coaches expect their defense to cut down the lead runner on an inferior bunt. If that also happens to be your philosophy, you'll be able to play the bunt by the book. Most high school coaches, however, believe that to cut down the lead runner you have to put your infielders into more advantageous positions.

We approach the bunt situation in one of two ways. In our conservative mode, we want our players to go for the sure out at first, unless they are positively sure of the lead out. In our aggressive approach, we focus on the lead out, using more initiative than we would in a standard bunt defense.

Major problem: What do you base your decision on? We play aggressively only when we know the bunt is on and the game situation dictates a play on the lead runner.