Situational Hitting: Runner on 3rd, Less than 2 Outs

The Money Lies in the RBI

My favorite thing to do as a baseball player was drive in runs. Getting the hit that directly puts a run on the board for your team should be a satisfying feeling. But you don't always need a hit. It can be boring, but as you'll learn on your baseball journey, boring hitting can be good hitting.

The Scenario

Runner on 3rd base, less than two outs, no force play. This means it's either just a runner on 3rd or there are runners on 2nd and 3rd. The infield may be in or back, but we will go over both.

Before we go into each specific scenario and our thought process with each, understand that the most important thing to do as a hitter here is get the ball in play. If you put the ball in play you have a chance to score. If you strikeout, there is a zero percent chance to score.

Infield Back/Middle Back

This means that the infielders are playing back at normal depth. You may see some scenarios where the corner infielders in on the grass and the middle infielders are back. In this scenario we are trying to hit the ball in the middle of the field on the ground.

If the middle infielders are back, you don't even need to hit it hard. You can hit a 14 hop groundball to shortstop and your team scores a run. Just like this -

What I love most about this is Marcus Semien is sitting in a 3-1 count. A lot of hitters think that in any 3-1 count, it's time to come out of your shoes and hit a homer. Here, Semien doesn't try and do too much and knows that just hitting a routine groundball gets the run home. It wasn't his best swing, but it ends up being a productive one.

As a 3rd base coach, I try not to talk to my hitters too much during their at bat. One thing I will ALWAYS say as a mental cue in this scenario, though, is "middle of the field." It's an automatic run for the team and an RBI when the infield is back.

Infield In

Now this is where it gets a little tricky and your approach may depend on your coach. The reason it is a little tricky is because now if you hit a groundball, the infielder might be able to throw your runner out at home. However, like we talked about in an earlier series of posts (1-out rule) it's not easy to throw a runner out at home on a groundball, even if the infield is in.

In this scenario, we tell hitters that they should be trying to hit a ball low and hard through the middle of the field. There are a couple reasons for this. One is Coach Hodson's favorite thing to talk about. If infielders were better at fielding groundballs in on the grass, they would play there all the time. With the infield in, their range goes WAY down and your batting average goes UP .100 points. This play is a perfect example of one where the fielder DEFINITELY gets it if he's back, but misplays it because he's in -

This ball isn't even that hard hit and it still finds a way to make it into the outfield. This low, hard through the middle approach gives us more room for error. If we're trying to hit a hard groundball and we miss a little under our aim point it turns into...

The Sacrifice Fly

When we ask players what their approach should be with the infield in, we always get "try to elevate the baseball for a sacrifice fly." While a sacrifice fly is a positive result, there are a couple issues with trying to elevate the ball-

1. Margin for error - For most hitters, they tend to miss underneath their aim point more frequently than over the top when trying to hit a flyball. This means the flyball ends up being an infield pop up or a swing and miss instead of that nice fly ball that makes the outfield move back.
2. Young player's strength - Most youth baseball players are not strong enough to hit a flyball on command deep enough to score the runner from 3rd. They are strong enough if they hit a ball well, but if they mishit a flyball it isn't going far enough to get the run in.

It looks a lot like this when young players try and hit sac flies -

Pete Alonso is one of the strongest players in the league. He doesn't hit this ball great, but he does hit it on the barrel. However, he gets too far underneath it and can't drive it deep enough to score the run.

A good sacrifice fly looks like this -

Jung Hoo Lee is not a power hitter. He's not strong enough to consistently aim on the bottom of the ball and hit it far enough. Here, he's not trying to hit a fly ball. He's trying to hit a ball hard in the middle of the field and drives the center fielder deep enough to easily score the run.

Cage Work

In our situational cage work at Extra Hacks, we never tell players to hit sacrifice flies. A sacrifice fly is a product of an approach to try and hit the ball hard in the middle of the field. We talk about being process oriented and not result oriented all the time. This is a great example of how trying for a result can actually hinder your ability to get it.

Summary

With a runner on 3rd and less than two outs our two separate scenarios are different, but our process doesn't change much. We know we can tap a ball to shortstop or 2nd base to score a run with the infield back. We also know with the infield in, those fielders have a lot less range. Bottom line, a good approach for almost all scenarios is hit the ball hard in the middle of the field. If you do this, you will end up with a good result more times than not.