I was recently watching MLB tonight and I heard Harold Reynolds and Eric Byrnes dive into the territory of multiple ways to score from third base. Their conversation was centered on the importance of aggressive base running and how if you as a baseball player can find a way to third base then your ability to score greatly increases with less than two outs.
The list below is incomplete at best but hopefully it will give you an idea of the multiple ways to score from third that otherwise would be deemed impossible or very difficult if you were standing on second.
- A balk
- Passed Ball
- Wild Pitch
- Infield hit
- Squeeze play
- Safety Squeeze
- A ground ball out
- A sacrifice fly
- Base hit
- An overthrow from the catcher to the pitcher
This small sample size should give you a clue of how important it is to work hard to get to third base with less than two outs.
Too often we settle for doubles and we settle at second bases and do not try and advance on balls in the dirt or groundballs behind us.
Remember we get on base by hitting the ball but we score runs by running the bases well.
Never settle on the base paths. Be aggressive and smart and your team will score more runs.
Until next time