Joe Maddon tried a four-outfielder shift against Joey Votto. It didn’t work.
Votto doubled anyway.
With Chicago up 7-2 in the fifth inning, and Cincinnati’s Joey Votto coming to the plate, Cubs manager Joe Maddon decided to get a little creative in an attempt to thwart Votto’s offense.
As with many of the crazy strategic changes Maddon tries, this one failed spectacularly.
Maddon used a four-outfielder shift with Votto up to bat (Kyle Schwarber, usual third baseman Kris Bryant, Jon Jay, and Jason Heyward), only for Votto to proceed to double down the first base line and completely foil the Cubs’ nefarious setup.
You can’t contain Joey Votto.
Reasonably, it’s possible to see where Maddon was coming from here. Votto is scary offensively and a tough out. He’s batting .415 and slugging .780 while flaunting a 1.367 OPS in August, so it’s fair to expect managers to try and find a foolproof way to prevent Votto from reaching base.
But sometimes it’s best just to ponder what four outfielders would look like and then not actually follow through on that idea.
At this point Maddon is known for his cockamamie choices that probably seem better in his head and then flop ridiculously once put into action. Remember when he almost lost Game 7 of the World Series that way? That was fun.
This isn’t the first or last time that Maddon is going to pull something “creative” out of his hat only for whatever implausible idea it is to not help the team at all. The good thing, for everybody besides Cubs fans, is that his hare-brained schemes are always hilarious to watch fall apart.
