To Pimp or not to Pimp

His team down by a run in the sixth inning Friday night, the Rangers’ Adolis Garcia launched a three-run home run in game five of the ALCS against the Astros, after which he spiked his bat into the ground before taking thirty-four seconds to circle the bases. That is what the kids refer to as pimping a home run. Geezers, myself included, frown on the practice. To paraphrase Walter Payton on scoring a touchdown, we think it’s better, wiser, to act like you’ve done it before and will be doing it again before long. But that view keeps losing ground to the Garcias and Tim Andersons of the world. Apparently, Garcia did something of the same against the Astros in a regular season game, so it’s hard to think of Bryan Abreu plunking him with a ninety-nine mph fastball in the eighth inning as a coincidence. All the Astros deny it was intentional and point to the fact they were down by two runs at the time. Outside of a 10-0 score, is there ever a “right” time to hit someone? Anyway, Houston entered the ninth inning down 4-2. Texas reliever Jose Leclerc gave up a single to Yanier Diaz and then walked pinch hitter Jon Singleton, in his first at-bat of the postseason after batting .165 in the regular season. That brought up Jose Altuve, who took an 0-1 pitch over the wall in left for his own three-run homer. Altuve needed twenty-four seconds to circle the bases, ten fewer than Garcia. It probably would’ve been less if not for those two runners in front of him.