I’m writing this on Friday morning, watching a replay of the Thursday walk-off win over the Astros, and a funny thing is occurring to me. The premise of this piece is how valuable Anthony Rizzo has been, not just in the lineup generally but in the three-hole specifically, and I was going to use his incredible, unbelievable, 16-pitch walk in the sixth inning as a framing device, but actually, I think its more appropriate to look at Aaron Judge’s walk-off single.
Judge gets a 3-0 count, and there is a base open, albeit not first base.