One big complaint from baseball fans in recent years has been the length of games, and unnecessary pickoff attempts have often been cited as a factor in that. It’s hard to find one much more unnecessary than what Philadelphia Phillies’ pitcher Nick Pivetta did Sunday against the Chicago Cubs. With the Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo on first base and no one out in the top of the fifth, Pivetta delivered the Platonic form of pickoff attempts, trying to pick off Rizzo while he was standing on the bag:
Nick Pivetta just attempted the world's least effective pickoff move pic.twitter.com/VTYNcAfJbs
— Ben Harris (@byBenHarris) August 27, 2017
Throwing over to a base to try and keep a runner who hasn’t left on the bag sometimes happens, but it’s rare to see it done with a full pickoff move like this. And this was a pretty substantial waste of time. However, the inning ended just fine for Philadelphia, with Javier Baez eventually hitting into a triple play. And Pivetta wound up being credited with the win in a 6-3 Phillies’ victory, bad pickoff attempts or no bad pickoff attempts.
