 Let's talk about the domino effect of baseball. Something that I love getting on base, grabbing the extra base, making the defenders change their positioning and then taking advantage of that new positioning. It's small ball. A lot of people that watch the breakdowns don't watch full games or don't really dive into the nuances. So that's kind of what I enjoy sharing and highlighting. This one is brought to you by DraftKings. Thank you to DraftKings for sponsoring the video and let's go talk about what I'm talking about. It's Battle of Texas. It's the Rangers and the Astros. They played a series in the first and second game of their series. Both were one with small ball moves late in the game to grab the lead. First game I'm talking about, the Astros are winning by one run in the bottom of the eighth inning. There are some really cool facts around this. The Astros were 30 and 0 at this point when they had the lead in the seventh inning or later. And the Rangers though, they at this point were coming back and winning a lot of games via the comeback. So let's see. It's kind of like, you know, which one's going to win the battle here? That's a strike to Heim and he says, I didn't like that. I'll just swing at the next one. Puts the fastball in play. He represents the tying run. He's on first base. There's no outs. So maybe it's a little momentum. He looks at the dugout and says, let's go. Let's go. And they say, okay, we're going to go, but you're out. You're out because you're not that fast. You're a catcher and we're bringing Culberson in and we want him to steal a base and get himself in scoring position. Now, scoring position in baseball, that means second base or third base. He steals. The Texas Rangers lead the league in stolen bases. And this changes a lot because now there's no force out, meaning the double play is much harder to come by. And also the batter's mindset here is I just got to move that runner to third base. So he wants to hit it on that side of the field. Now, if that guy Culberson was still on first base over here, the first baseman fields this ball, throws it to second. He catches it. They get the out there, throws it back two outs. But because he stole the base, that's not an option. And now they get the one out, but the tying run is on third base. He's 90 feet away and he's going to get pats on the back and good job. And this couple is yawning and they're bored. And he even gets high fives for the ground out. Some new baseball fans might be like, why is he getting congratulated? Well, he moved the runner over. And now the next batter comes up and he's going to scan the infield and see what's going on. And they have the infield in. That's to get to balls quicker so they can field it, release it, throw it home to get the runner out because that's the tying run. So you see all the infielders are close to the grass. They're in. That's the domino effect that we've had already. Just from stealing the base, you avoid the double play. Now the infield's in, which means this batter just got to put it in play and you can get it past them. That's an out, if not for the present situation. And now the game is tied. And he's on first base. He represents the go ahead run. And they said, let's run it back. Let's steal again. We're the Rangers. We got nothing to lose. Maldonado, the catcher's like, uh, are you sure, dude? Looks like he's fucking out to me. And look, he should have been out, but he swin moves the tag with his arm and his leg. Kind of nutty. So now the go ahead runs on second. That ball is spiked. He moves to third. And now it's even more scary. A lot of times with a runner on third, that means the pitcher is not going to throw a ball in the dirt again like he just did, because then they can score on a passball while pitch. The batter can put that into his head and say, I'll probably see fastballs or balls over the plate here unless they have a really, really good catcher or a ballsy pitcher. As you can see, the infield is in again this time to cut off the go ahead run. And because it's a lefty, they're not only in on the grass, they're also shifting to the right side, leaving that left side wide open and backyard Brad Miller says, I'm a professional hitter. I'll just squib one that way. That's not a good hit. You know, it is for the situation and they're excited in Texas because now they've come back. They've taken the lead and they have one real hit. This couple is excited, clapping. Now, Nariss is scared to throw strikes. They don't want to get beat again with some cheap hit. So just outside, outside, outside, outside. They walk that batter and then Dusty says, you know what? Sorry, buddy, you got to get out. Not really your fault unless, you know, sometimes you can steal bases on the pitcher because they're slow to home. So it's not always the catcher's fault. But those two stolen bases manufactured the tying in the go ahead run. And then here's a little other thing. Look at this pitch. That's a decent contact. He pulled it found the curveball. And then that's the fastball. And look at his reaction to the fastball. He was way late on it. Look at those hands. He's way late on that. I don't know. If you read the body language there, you're probably saying he's sitting off speed, gets off speed again, swings, gets the same pitch as the first one. And this time puts it in play. Another real hit with two strikes on, but they don't score. He gets held at third because the outfield made a nice play. It's like, okay, really want more of the lead. You can see he's running round in third. Third base coach was saying go. And then I guess they just said pull on the brakes, yell back, back, back, back, back. Doesn't matter because they put it in play. Altuve bobbles it, can't make the double play. That allows another run to score. And that's how the Rangers came back. Those two stolen bases changed the dynamic of this entire inning, took away the double play, made them bring the infield in. The next night, now we're going to see Altuve on the other side of the ball really contribute. The next night, the Rangers are up three to zero against the Astros. Altuve's in the box. He's the leadoff hitter, takes that high. Look at the strike zone they have for him. Like it's not. What is that strike zone? That's just too small. That's tiny. Look at that strike zone. It's his belt. That's not real. That's a fake box. Anyway, Altuve puts it in play. He's going to get on base. Now he's not the tying run or the go ahead run. They got a lot more they got to do, but they got Brantley up the hit man. He takes that pitch for a strike. Good call. Blue. The next pitch he puts in play. Altuve's running hard. It's kind of a slow roller. Altuve decides he's going to go first to third and he gets in there. It was closer than he wanted it to be. You could see his face right here. He's like, I didn't realize it was going to be that close after the game. He was like, yeah, I probably wouldn't do that again. That was kind of close. He's got a good arm out there. Going first to third is good. That's something people keep track of. That's something you get pats on the head about. That's something the Astros actually aren't good at this year. They're second in the league at, well, they're second in second worst in league at extra bases taken. I think they're fourth worst at going first to third on singles, but going first to third is great. Otherwise it'd be first and second. The triple play would be in order. Not that that's actually going to happen, but Braggman's up now and takes that one or a strike. Little delayed call by the ump. That one's outside. The count is one and one. The next pitch in play and this is where, see, I don't know. You don't know if you give credit here to Altuve or we get upset with Seager. I'll let you watch it first. I'll explain. He comes home to cut off the run. Now the runner should be out, way out, and then they botched the rundown and that's the power of balls in play and making the defense do their job. For three years MLB kind of said defense doesn't matter and now it's really biting them because I think infield defense has been awful this year. Should he have just gone to second? That's the big question coming here because Altuve goes to third. He's got the run on his mind and he wants to get Altuve out, but if he fields this and throws it to second, they have an easy double play. They go boom, boom. Now the run would score. It would become a three to one game, but I think that's fine because you get two outs and then you still have another inning. That's a true tradeoff. I'm sure there's people that disagree with me and they say, no, you've got to get that run and they should have had the run. It's not the shortstop Corey Seeger's fault that they didn't get the run. They botched the rundown because the catcher threw it just too hard for the guy. I couldn't handle it. I'm just joking. He was in his glove. He botched it and then he botches it and then Brantley gets to third, which is important. He follows the play. Look at the crowd reaction. Now you got second and third. That could have been bases empty two outs. I think you got to get that double play because it could have been bases empty two outs, a one run, a three to one game. And now it goes wrong and both runners advanced. So you see now it's second and third. You don't have the force. You got Alvarez up. It's looking really good. He puts it in play and now an out scores a run because the miss play, because Brantley followed the play on the base pass. Now an out scores a run. Now they're one run away and Tucker says, nah, now we have the lead. It's a two run home run. That's not small ball. That's big ball. They scored four runs on nine pitches there, something like that. And Rangers are a bit stunned. Seeger's like, shit, should I have turned the double play? He's like, shit, should I have just caught that ball? Two of us like, maybe I should have gotten first to third. Maybe I don't regret it. And that's just a little bit the power of small ball and taking the extra base and how much one tiny thing can change everything else and why I like baseball because it's a strategy game and you can, you can, you can win games by doing stuff that does not show up in the box score at all. Thank you to DraftKings for sponsoring this video. I appreciate them very much. Hopefully you enjoyed it. I know nothing crazy happened at all. For people that watch baseball every day, they're just going to be like, dude, that was just a video about baseball. And it's like, yep, sure. That's what I love though.