This game typifies why the open base need not always be filled. Particularly with the winning run on third base, you are asking quite a lot of your pitcher to confine him to the box created by bases loaded. The Brewers should have gone after Soto--a player coming in cold off the bench--with runners on second and third and 2 outs. Instead, they blatantly pitched around him for 3 pitches, then intentionally put him on with the fourth pitch to set the stage for the walk-off walk.
By pitching Soto tough, you may still walk him--but you also may get him out. In fact, Soto makes an out approximately 75% of the time this season, so it seems to me that the odds were in favor of the Brewers if they simply pitched to him. And the kicker is that this is true of every hitter: he makes an out more often than he gets a hit. So walking the bases loaded with the winning run on third is inexcusable--unless there are fewer than 2 outs and the aim is to establish a double play opportunity.
Keywords: Brewers, Chicago, Chicago Cubs, Cubs, Milwaukee, Milwaukee Brewers, MLB, Strategy
