Bad approach leads to boring playoff game

They say strong pitching beats strong hitting and the numbers appear to bear that out as the teams combined for 15 hits Tuesday night. The fact it was decided in the 13th inning should have made every die-hard baseball fan swoon.

The reality is, Game 4 was a far cry from that. In fact, it showed, in the spotlight, what is wrong with Major League Baseball right now. With so much focus on launch angle and the trite “Three true outcomes” — a new-age way to say that the best outcomes in any at-bat are a home run, strikeout or walk — it’s taken away from the strategy of the game. Rarely did you see during Tuesday night’s game any batter for either team try to do anything other than park the ball over the fence. Very little in-bat adjustments. No trying to punch the ball the opposite way. Nothing other than every swing from the heels during every at-bat. Time and again, batters rolled grounders to shortstop or second base in easy innings for the parade of pitchers.

Add no action on the bases, a revolving door on the pitcher’s mound, a combined 32 strikeouts, 13 innings and a five-and-a-half hour game, and it equals the most boring baseball game I think I have ever watched.

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Well, it didn’t take long for the Oakland Raiders to turn into a flaming heap. Instead of riding in on a white horse to save Raider Nation, it appears Jon Gruden slowly rode into town, hat pulled down low so the townsfolk couldn’t see what his intentions truly were.

Because in less than a year, Gruden is showing what he learned during his last go-around in the NFL.

The common refrain for Gruden’s first NFL tenure was that, yes, he won a Super Bowl after literally being traded to Tampa Bay to replace the fired Tony Dungy. But that statement is always quickly followed by, “But he did it with Dungy’s guys and he played his former team for the title.”

This time around, Gruden is determined to make the Raiders “his team,” for better or for worse. So he ships out Khalil Mack. Sure, he may be a once-in-a-generation talent, but Gruden didn’t draft him, so out he goes. Receiver Amari Cooper is rumored to be on the trading block, along with disappointing safety Karl Joseph. Cornerback Gareon Conley barely sees the field and appears headed to a new address that is not in Nevada.

Gruden purged the roster of nearly every high draft pick since Reggie McKenzie took over as general manager, who is almost assuredly out at the end of this season, and is looking to move more. He brought in a bunch of aging, past-their-prime free agents — running back Doug Martin, who has shown nothing so far; linebacker Derrick Johnson, who starred in Kansas City, but let go Tuesday; defensive back Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie — who have contributed little.

When Gruden was hired, all the talk was he wanted to give Oakland one last hurrah before the team heads for Las Vegas. Instead, he has started the process of demolishing the team down to the studs and being a year or two into a rebuild once the team does get to the desert.

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Meanwhile, on the other side of the ... Bay (?) ... the 49ers showed they might have some life left in them after all.

The general consensus was they were going to get drubbed by the Green Bay Packers Monday night. Instead, they forced Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to play like the Hall of Famer he is as he guided Green Bay to a last-second win.

Is this the true 49ers team, or was this just a one-off and they are instead the team that lost to the Arizona Cardinals? The truth lies somewhere in the middle. A team that is using its back-up quarterback and has a running back unit that is thin because of injury is going to be up and down, there’s no way to get around that.

This season is basically a mulligan anyway, once presumed starting running back Jerrick McKinnon and Jimmy Garoppolo went down for the year with knee injuries. To make matters worse, it essentially delays the growth of the team for at least a year. Suddenly those six-year contracts for coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch become a year shorter.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117.