ARLINGTON, Texas — Joe Maddon walked out to the mound about to make a decision that would shock the baseball world.
He wanted to personally tell pitcher Austin Warren that he’d call for a bases-loaded intentional walk with one out in the fourth inning. It was going to put the Rangers up two runs. It was a decision that flew in the face of all conventional wisdom — so rare that no manager has ever made a similar decision that early in the game.
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The Angels manager wanted to extend Texas’ lead to get the bat out of Corey Seager’s hands. The inning ended with the Angels down by four.
“The numbers are one thing,” the veteran manager said after the game, which the Angels won 9-6 over the Rangers. “Human beings are something completely different. And for me, the human element right there required what we did.”
“Absolutely it was surprising,” Warren said of his skipper’s decision. “But, I mean, I’m not gonna tell Joe Maddon no.”
The unprecedented decision to intentionally walk in a run in the fourth inning was only the most absurd thing on a night full of absurdities. The Angels hit five home runs — including the first two of the season from Shohei Ohtani, one from the light-hitting Kurt Suzuki and another rare opposite-field shot from Jared Walsh. Jo Adell blasted a 447-foot second-deck shot.
But this memorable night will go down because of one unorthodox decision and two consecutive half-innings when each team scored five runs. After the intentional walk backfired, the Angels rallied for five runs to bail out their manager and take a lead they’d hold the rest of the night.
“For Seager, it’s obviously a compliment of how good he is,” said Rangers manager Chris Woodward. “Who knows, maybe he hits a grand slam, maybe he hits into a double play. I don’t know. They didn’t get out of that because of that.”
It was only the third time in the modern era that a player had been walked intentionally with the bases loaded. The previous two instances came with two outs in the ninth inning to preserve leads. The last time, in 2008, was in a game between the Rays and Rangers in Arlington. Maddon, then Tampa Bay’s manager, called for that intentional walk.
That time, though, was a drastically different situation. The Angels were down by one run. This time was simply because, well, who knows? Maddon said he felt Warren was not as sharp as normal — he’d just given up a four-pitch walk to Marcus Semien. Maddon wanted to avoid a potential grand slam.
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So allowing a run, he deemed, was the better course of action. Maddon added that it pumped up his team — calling his mound visit with Warren a “hallmark kind of moment.”
“You don’t really expect an intentional walk with the bases loaded,” said starting pitcher Reid Detmers, who was charged with the run on the intentional walk. “But Joe knows what he’s doing. Obviously, it worked out in our favor. And that’s all that really matters.”
Though the Angels won, the plan did not work. The next batter, Mitch Garver, hit a sacrifice fly to the wall in right-center. Then Warren issued a run-scoring balk. The inning ended with the Angels down 6-2.
The Angels changed the narrative quickly. Suzuki homered to make it 6-3. Ohtani, two batters later, hit a towering shot to right field that brought the Angels within one. Walsh’s RBI single tied the score. Then Brandon Marsh untied it with a sac fly.
There was a chance Maddon would have to wear one of the more peculiar managerial decisions had the Angels lost. That, though, did not enter his consideration.
“You can never make a decision like that,” he said. “I just thought it was the right thing to do in the moment. Period.”
Ohtani avoided laying off more pitches in the zone — putting the first toss of the game over the wall and into the Rangers bullpen. The Angels bullpen avoided giving up the lead for the third time in just two games this series. The Angels avoided losing yet again to a divisional opponent, evening their early-season record at 4-4.
This was just one game in a season of 162. It won’t be remembered for the loss or any of the other moments. Maddon is known for quirky managerial decisions that get people talking. Doing something new is not unfamiliar to the manager who broke the Cubs’ World Series curse.
But this decision will certainly go down as one of the weirdest, even though his team was able to pull out a win.
“That’s something you don’t normally do,” Maddon said. “And I thought just by going out there and doing something like that, the team might respond. Simple as that.”
(Photo of Austin Warren: Tim Heitman / Getty Images)
