This past weekend, we packed the kids in the car and drove up to Baltimore to see the Orioles face my favorite team, the Cleveland Indians. One of the things I wanted to see, and point out to my five year old, was the Pronk Shift.

For quite a while now, teams have been giving Travis Hafner the kind of treatment they give to Barry Bonds, Jim Thome, and David Ortiz. At the very least, teams tend to play three infielders on the right side of second base; in extreme versions all four infielders may be on the right side. 

The impetus for the shift is fairly simple. For whatever reason, these lefthanded sluggers never hit a groundball to the right side. Oddly, however, all do show power to the opposite field -- it's just that they always hit the ball in the air when they hit it the other way. So the shift covers the areas where they generally hit the ball.

However, Joe Maddon, the manager of the Devil Rays, came up with an intriguing alternative, at least from a slow pitch softball perspective. First, Maddon used four outfielders instead of three. Then he spaced the outfielders evenly and parked them right at the warning track. This covers Pronk's power to all fields.

Next, Maddon puts all three remaining infielders on the right side of the infield, but with another twist. Only the first baseman is on the infield dirt. The other two "infielders" are parked in shallow right field.

So heading to Baltimore this weekend, I expected to see some variation of the shift. When Hafner came to bat, however, what I saw was a surprise -- the Orioles didn't shift at all. In fact, they played him to hit the ball the other way, with the right fielder playing in the gap, the center fielder shaded toward left, and the left fielder playing toward the line. 

The infielder was even stranger -- just playing him straight away.

My expectation was that Hafner would pull the ball. What happened made the lack of shift look brilliant. Hafner, who practically never hits the ball on the ground the other way, even when the entire side of the field is empty, beat a groundball straight to third baseman Melvin Mora. There's something you don't see every day.

It became clear, in subsequent at bats, that the Orioles were daring Hafner to pull the ball, but throwing him outside as much as they could. While he did manage a late single, Hafner was a non-factor that night.

At the game the next day, variations on the same scenario. After striking out the first time up, Hafner was greeted with a series of outside pitches. When the Orioles finally came in, the result was again highly unusual -- a popup to Mora over at third base. The third time up, he grounded out to Mora again.

The Orioles apparently were so taken with the strategy that they did something unthinkable in the final game of the series -- they intentionally walked Casey Blake with runners on second and third to get to Hafner -- who then struck out.

What does all this mean for Pronk? My guess is that it means nothing. Even if his recent struggles are the result of a different approach being taken by the Orioles, thus far in his career Hafner has always adjusted back. Since the start of 2004, Hafner has had two months with an OPS under .900 -- April and May 2005. So chances are that  he'll figure it out, and that he'll do it quickly.

Case in point -- after the walk to Blake and the strikeout, Hafner came to the plate again with the bases loaded an inning later. The result? A grand slam.