Here is a little story ...
It was June 27, 2003 and the Red Sox were absolutely routing Jack McKeon and his Marlins at Fenway Park. It started with a 14-run first inning and culminated with Grady Little's team plating four more in the eighth in on the way to a 25-8 win. The last run scored was on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Todd Walker, with Bill Mueller coming in. It didn't make McKeon very happy at all.
"I didn't realize your pitching was that bad," McKeon said. "Trying to add on to a 16-run lead in the seventh 21-5. Guys being thrown out at the plate on short fly balls. It might be a blessing for us because it might have woke us up."
Little, who was good friends with McKeon, was on his buddy's side, talking to his players about this sort of unwritten rule.
Red Sox principal owner John Henry, who used to own the Marlins, however, was digging in.
"If we're supposed to stop trying to score we should just put up a disclaimer on the scoreboard: 'You should go home now, we're not trying anymore.' You've got people giving up their Friday night to be at the ballpark, spending a couple of hundred bucks, and we're supposed to stop playing? The idea is to score runs," Henry said. "I'm supposed to feel sorry for the other guys? What is there, some kind of unwritten rule? Look, that's my infield out there (for the Marlins). I love those guys. There is no team in baseball that I have less desire to see embarrassed.
"But you can't stop playing baseball just because you're ahead by 10 or 20 runs. I guarantee you every fan in the ballpark was wishing for 30 runs, just so they could say they were there to witness history."
Guess what happened the next night.
The Red Sox got off to a 9-2 lead after seven innings. The Marlins then proceeded to score four in the eighth and four more in the ninth for Florida's greatest comeback in its history. Lesson learned. Runs are important and you better make sure you get a good look at those unwritten rules before actually implementing them.
So why do we bring this up? Because the stupidity of another unwritten rule was flying around all over the place in the game between San Diego and Texas Monday night.
A baseball is thrown, you try and hit it and the desired outcome is to score runs. Plain and simple.
In this day and age, hitters are hitting, no matter what the count. Pitchers have to understand that. In 2018 and 2019 there were 46 and 40 homers, respectively, on 3-0 counts. This season there have already been 12. Go back to as recently as 2008 and there were just 16. In Woodward's final season in the majors, 2011, there were just 23.
Times have changed, and so should this unwritten rule.
Fortunately, the sentiment is shared by many of those who actually throw the baseballs.