Small Ball and Reliever Usage Loom as Tactical Questions for Pat Murphy in Shadow of Postseason

An eventful series between the Brewers and Diamondbacks concluded with a wild and baffling finale on Sunday, as the managers traded confusing decisions in the late innings of an eventual Arizona walk-off win.

The questionable management from the road dugout began on the offensive side. Pat Murphy called for a sacrifice bunt twice in the final four innings, which hurt his team’s chances of scoring both times.

In the seventh inning, Joey Ortiz stepped to the plate with a 7-5 Brewers lead, runners on first and second, and no outs. Ortiz attempted a sacrifice on a sinker several inches off the plate inside. Ryan Thompson collected the roller to the mound and initiated a 1-5-3 double play. Ortiz and lead runner Rhys Hoskins were both retired, leaving only Jake Bauers on second base with two outs.

When Sal Frelick led off the 10th inning of the then-tied game, the Brewers asked him to sacrifice the placed runner from second to third. Frelick squared and popped a 100-mph fastball to third base for the inning’s first out.

The Brewers ultimately scored in both innings, but that does not justify the process behind the sacrifice attempts. The Brewers will and should play more small ball than most teams due to the makeup of their roster, but they do their offense a disservice when they overemphasize it in situations warranting a more aggressive and straightforward approach to scoring.

When Ortiz came to bat, the Brewers had an opportunity to blow the game open in the late innings. They chose to forgo that opportunity by playing small ball. Considering where the Brewers were in their lineup, Ortiz was arguably the best hitter to turn the frame into a big inning. He entered the game with a solid 109 wRC+ and a .308/.400/.513 slash line in September.

Behind Ortiz was Frelick, who trails Ortiz in on-base percentage, entered the game with an 89 wRC+, and rarely makes authoritative contact. A soft ground ball or fly ball was highly unlikely to score Hoskins from third. The Brewers had their shot with Ortiz. Instead, they used him to hand the Diamondbacks an out to move the runners over for a less favorable matchup. It's good to note that, on average, runners on first and second with no outs is one of the rare occasions on which the models do support laying down a bunt. Those models don't account for aspects like the fact that Ortiz is better than the hitter behind him or that the lead runner he was trying to advance is one of the slowest players in baseball, though.

Similarly, immediately turning to small ball is arguably the wrong course of action for the road team in extra innings. Due to the placed runner, the home team begins the bottom half of the inning with the winning run at the plate if trailing by one. The best way for the road team to avoid starting the inning at a disadvantage is by playing for multiple runs in the top half. Leading off with a sacrifice bunt does the opposite.

Not only is the bunt detrimental when not executed according to plan, but its overall utility is limited. It does not catch the opposing defense by surprise when it is familiar and expected. As a sacrifice, it rarely puts the batting team in a better position to score. Well-executed bunts for hits don't have to surprise the defense, and bunting more does sharpen the skill for most players, but the only Brewer who has shown the consistent competence to bunt well even against a ready defense is one who can't do that for them right now: the injured Christian Yelich.

Too much bunting undermines an offense’s ability to do damage, a trap that the Brewers have fallen into at times throughout the season. It’s a deleteriously demanding brand of baseball that attempts to force pressure on the opponent, instead of creating it organically with quality contact and plate discipline.

That is not always Murphy’s fault. In fact, he typically emphasizes ball-strike recognition and “meeting the game halfway” over employing any particular kind of offensive strategy. He has often voiced disapproval over ill-advised bunts attempted of a player’s own volition. On sacrifice bunt calls from the dugout, though, it is Murphy making the final decision to run an often counterproductive play. He clearly feels pressure, at times, to help his team produce offense, when the more prudent course is to stand back and make room for their talent, even understanding the risk that it might not come to bear in a given moment.

It was Murphy’s handling of his best reliever, however, that raised the most eyebrows on Sunday. As five straight Diamondbacks reached against Jared Koenig in the 10th to erase a two-run lead, Devin Williams mysteriously alternated between warming up and sitting down. A seated Williams looked on with visible frustration as Arizona walked it off.

Murphy explained that he wanted to avoid using Williams due to his recent workload amid the team’s current stretch of 13 games in as many days. Per Murphy, Williams was only available to record one out, and was warming in case that precise situation arose.

However, Williams seemingly contradicted that statement with his own account of the final two innings. He initially warmed up during the ninth when the game was tied, and said he would have entered for the traditional save opportunity had the Brewers taken the lead.

If Murphy truly was trying to avoid pitching Williams, who appeared in back-to-back and three of four games two days earlier, it was the right approach. However, using such a hyper-specific methodology to determine his availability undermined the load management Murphy was trying to achieve.

Murphy downplayed any impact of the start-and-stop warmup on Williams’ availability for Monday and beyond, but the reality is that such pitches thrown in the bullpen are not empty bullets.

Williams appeared hot and ready to enter the game, both physically and mentally, on multiple occasions. On a day when he and the Brewers would have benefited most from keeping him down, that energy went to waste in a game in which he was unlikely to appear.

Despite Murphy’s motivational mantra of “Win tonight,” the reality is that balancing today and tomorrow is a critical part of keeping a big-league roster functional throughout a long season. Williams has been worked hard, and the Brewers need him at full strength for a seven-game homestand that could have significant implications in the National League playoff race. 

Murphy knows this; it’s why Williams did not pitch on Sunday. But the skipper has yet to strike that balance consistently, a challenging task at which his predecessor excelled throughout his tenure as Milwaukee’s skipper.

Keeping his closer’s availability open-ended would have been far more reasonable in a playoff or regular-season elimination game. A manager has to manage for tonight when there may be no tomorrow. While Murphy was given the unenviable task of covering innings with a depleted bullpen, that did not make Sunday a fitting day to get creative with reliever availability.

The stakes did not justify sending Williams through multiple warmup routines for an unlikely one-out save opportunity. He should have been off-limits entirely, leaving Koenig to finish the game one way or another.

One game does not take away from Murphy’s success so far as a first-year manager, but it was a reminder that he has his weak spots as an in-game tactician. His tendency to think deeply about the game's intricacies can sometimes be his undoing, prompting him to juggle more moving pieces than necessary as he strategizes.

Orchestrating a successful rally with bunting and small ball requires that several little things go right, as does a Devin Williams one-out save opportunity. Most of those things are out of Murphy’s control.

In these moments, a simpler approach can be best. When there’s an opportunity to strike on offense, swing the bat. When a reliever has shouldered a heavy load and must be fresh in a few days, give him the day off. Win tonight when you can, but remember that another tonight will come tomorrow.