Tagged: Carlos Gomez

Ron Roenicke Loves the Squeeze Play

It’s been an interesting, and somewhat difficult season at Miller Park this year, with the Brewers stuck in the mud at 38-45 heading toward the All-Star break.  With injuries to expected key contributors Jonathan Lucroy, Alex Gonzalez, and Mat Gamel the Brewer offense has been drained of a good amount of its expected power. Ricky Weeks’ drastic decline in performance (.193/.312/.634 with 6 homers) and the fact that Cesar Izturis has been given 114 at-bats where he hit .209/.230/.297 with 4 total extra-base hits and 1 steal speak to the level of offensive desperation Roenicke must feel in the dugout. Because of this Roenicke has made the squeeze bunt his best friend, trying to muster all the runs he can around Ryan Braun and Corey Hart homers, using the tactic 7 times already this season. The squeeze bunt can be broken into two different categories, the safety squeeze, which means the base runner does not start running home until the bunt has been laid down, and the suicide squeeze, which means the man on the bases is barreling home as soon as he sees the opportunity to get a good jump. Let’s break down each of the Brewers squeeze bunts, and discuss why they were successful :

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