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Astros use bizarre outfield tactic to keep Joey Gallo off base

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“There’s a fly ball deep to left! At the warning track … at the wall … but caught by the third baseman!”

As strange as that call would sound, it could be a reality based on the defensive formation used by the Houston Astros in their Opening Day win over the Texas Rangers on Thursday.

With Rangers slugger Joey Gallo hitting from the left side of the plate, the Astros employed a four-man outfield featuring third baseman Alex Bregman covering left field, second baseman Jose Altuve in shallow right field and shortstop Carlos Correa covering the second-base side of the bag.

The unique positioning kept Gallo off the bases Thursday, as the slugger went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. In the first inning, Gallo popped out to Bregman. In the fourth, he flied out to left fielder Josh Riddick. Gallo struck out in the sixth and lined out to right in the eighth.

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Gallo seemed to shrug off the impact of the shift on his approach at the plate.

“There were a lot of guys in the outfield,” Gallo said. “I had heard about it, but I didn’t know how it worked. I really didn’t think anything of it.”

Was Gallo tempted to lay down a bunt with the left side of the infield so wide open?

“I’ve bunted before, but I don’t have much experience at it,” Gallo said. “I wasn’t coming into Opening Day planning to lay down a bunch of bunts.”

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Rangers manager Jeff Banister didn’t believe the shift influenced Gallo’s mindset at the plate, even though Gallo swung at the first pitch in each of his first two at-bats.

“I don’t think having four outfielders impacted how he swung the bat or his mindset,” Banister said. “Couple of times there, we need a baserunner. Little uncharacteristic of him. Chalk it up to Opening Day, firing quickly on a couple of first pitches. He settled in and started taking the at-bats. I don’t think it bothered his mindset.”

Astros manager A.J. Hinch said the unique positioning was more than a gimmick.

“It’s not a gimmick play as much as it’s a coverage,” Hinch told The Athletic. “Like any shifting that you do, you’re trying to put guys in a position where we can cover the most ground that makes the most sense. And some guys, when you look at fly-ball rates and you look at where they actually hit the ball, you don’t want to defend an area where there’s minimal chance of those guys hitting it, and a lot of times that’s on the ground on the opposite side of the field.”

This was the first time the Astros used the four-man outfield in a regular-season game, but they experimented with it on more than one occasion during spring training.

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In a March 21 game against the Washington Nationals, the Astros used the formation against Matt Adams. It prompted Nationals TV analyst F.P. Santangelo to liken it to a “beer-league softball” formation.

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Scott Kelnhofer is a writer for The Western Journal and Conservative Tribune. A native of Milwaukee, he currently resides in Phoenix.
Scott Kelnhofer is a writer for The Western Journal and Conservative Tribune. He has more than 20 years of experience in print and broadcast journalism. A native of Milwaukee, he has resided in Phoenix since 2012.
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