Brad Ziegler Debriefing

Line: 1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 1 K...and a HBP. Definite case of compounding an error by overcompensating for the result. I mean, consider this scenario. You're holding a cup of liquid that's scalding hot. You almost lose your grip on it moving forward, so you pull it towards you--so you burn hand instead of having lost the beverage. That's exactly what he did. He hit a guy to his right of the plate, and then served it up high and on (to the left-handed batter) the inner half of the plate.

The art of dealing with error is to realize that greater calamity waits in your reaction to that error. I think Hamilton understood that, swinging first pitch fastball from a submariner; why was Ziegler, who is supposed to be in control of the game, the only person who didn't realize that he was at risk of making a mistake not from the mistake itself but from reacting to that mistake?

So you say this: in the future, when you make a mistake--even a home run--you have to ascertain whether it is a greater calamity to have committed the mistake, or to commit others in reaction to that mistake. And the club has to work on their reaction to that error. Delay the game. Call a pitch out. Something to get the pitcher's mind out of the error.