With scoring up, walking top hitters is sometimes best option
In the second round of the softball playoffs, Lovejoy’s Brittany Lewis came up with the bases loaded and her team trailing by a run in the second inning. Whitehouse pitched to the senior slugger, even though Lewis had gone 4-for-4 with two home runs in the previous game of the series.
The Stephen F. Austin signee made Whitehouse pay, blasting a grand slam that gave Lovejoy all the runs it would need in a 7-2 win.
“Hindsight is 20/20,” Lovejoy coach Amanda Douglas said. “Do you give up one run or do you give up four? … That’s a tough decision for a coach to make, to walk in a run. But it’s better than a grand slam.”
With several of the Dallas area’s top home run hitters still in the playoffs, coaches could face a similar dilemma — perhaps not with the bases loaded — in this week’s regional semifinals.
“Many of our recruits are rarely pitched to in high school ball,” Baylor coach Glenn Moore said via email. “Earlier this year I saw a team intentionally walk one of our recruits with the bases loaded to tie the game in order to pitch to the next, weaker hitter.”
Coaches may be more inclined to walk a team’s best hitter now than they would have been before the 2011 season. That was the year Texas high schools changed from a 40-foot pitching distance to the current 43-foot distance.
Before that, one or two runs was often enough to win a game. Now, there is a lot more scoring, so giving up one run doesn’t hurt as much.
“I think that affected the game and possibly changed some coaches’ strategy,” Mansfield Legacy coach Michelle Mayfield said. “I don’t think we’ve done an intentional walk [this season]. I’m not saying we won’t, but we usually like to go at them and make them beat us. It’s dictated by the situation.”
All 10 Dallas-area 5A and 4A teams still in the playoffs are averaging at least 5.5 runs per game in the postseason, led by Forney at 11.2. All 10 of those teams have scored nine or more runs at least twice in the playoffs, with Frisco Centennial scoring 20 in one game and McKinney Boyd scoring 19 in another.
“All offensive stats have gone up tremendously just from that three feet,” said Forney coach Eric Montgomery, whose team plays Legacy this week. “When you see those power hitters, now they’re really getting the weight on the ball and waiting for that good pitch. Now you’ve got to be really careful how you pitch to them, because you can’t just throw one as hard as you can and hope it gets by them.”
Forney senior Brooke McCarroll has 12 home runs this season — one short of the area lead — and 43 home runs the last three years. But the UT-San Antonio signee has been walked only twice in the playoffs, even though she has four home runs and eight RBIs in five games.
“You’ll see teams throw her more outside,” Montgomery said. “She tends to look for that mistake pitch, and if they make a mistake and put one where she can hit it, she can hit the outside pitch. So she doesn’t really get walked as often.
“We keep a couple of good hitters in front of her and a couple of good hitters behind her, which always helps.”
Flower Mound Marcus’ Ashley Hardin has drawn 19 walks, including eight in eight playoff games. She has still hit three homers in the playoffs, giving her 12 for the season.
Last week, Lovejoy faced Ennis’ Riley Fira, who entered the regional quarterfinals with 13 home runs. Fira walked once in three games, but even though she went 6-for-10, she didn’t homer and Lovejoy won the series.
“We very rarely will intentionally walk anybody,” Douglas said. “But we will definitely be careful. We talk about kind of pitching around the plate and seeing if we can get them to swing at our junk.”
Lewis is hitting .625 with 10 home runs, and she is among the area RBI leaders with 62. She has walked 17 times, a total that might be higher if Lovejoy didn’t have Sammi Curry and Ginger Hervey getting on base in front of her and Louisiana Tech signee Amanda Gray batting behind her.
Curry and Hervey are hitting .521 and .441, respectively, and they have combined to score 120 runs in 38 games. Gray is batting .478 and is second on the team in home runs (six) and RBIs (52).
“Sometimes it is frustrating,” Lewis said of the walks. “But that’s when you really put your faith in your team and you know that since they’re walking me, the other players will take care of it.”
Frisco Centennial, which plays Lovejoy next, had one of the area’s top home run hitters in Allie Cranfill from 2009 to 2011. Coach Mike Dyson said, “Everybody walked her.”
He isn’t afraid to do the same to a dangerous hitter.
“If I feel like there is a girl on that team that will change the game or change the momentum of the game, I’ll walk her,” Dyson said. “That one person can change everything.”
