King Kaufman's Sports Daily

In defense of J.D. Drew: Playoff teams are killing themselves with aggressiveness, but his failed attempt to score wasn't a terrible idea.

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Oct. 5, 2006 | If there's a recurring theme to these playoffs it's teams running themselves out of innings. The Tigers and Twins both did it in their first game, and I'm sure you've heard about the Dodgers doing it in theirs, two base-runners in a row tagged out at home on the same play.

If you missed it, tune in to a baseball highlights show sometime in the next century.

I'm usually not a big fan of boneheaded aggressiveness, running into outs and helping a struggling pitcher out, as both the Tigers and Twins did with steal attempts against the Yankees and A's. And I'm not fond of the "That's just how we play, we stay aggressive" rap managers employ afterward to justify sending those runners, as Jim Leyland of Detroit and Ron Gardenhire of Minnesota both did.

Aggressiveness is good, but not when it's just a euphemism for dumb, low-percentage plays, when it's just a label for impatience.

So it's probably going to come as a surprise when I say that I don't think J.D. Drew, the trailing Dodger runner who got tagged for the second out at home in the space of about three seconds, necessarily did a bad thing by trying to score Wednesday.

The headlines say the play cost the Dodgers Game 1 against the Mets at Shea Stadium. It might have, though it happened in the second inning of a scoreless game that ended 6-5. The rest of that game happens in a different universe without that play. The Mets might have won 13-3.

And make no mistake, Drew didn't try to score because he thought it was a high-percentage play. It was a screwup. But if he had gone because of a conscious decision, I don't think it would have been the worst decision in the world.

Put it this way: If Drew had been safe on the play, which is not an outrageous proposition, he would have been praised to the heavens for his instincts, hustle and aggressiveness. And I think rightly so.

It can't be both ways. It was either a good idea to go or it wasn't. You can't say it wasn't just because it didn't work out. Good ideas sometimes don't work out. There's another team on the field, you know, and sometimes the other team makes a good play.

Next page: A lot of things can happen on a play at the plate. Plus: Torii Hunter's play of the game