situational infield positioning

Question
Situation: Bottom of the 5th in a 7 inning Pony leauge game (13&14yr.olds). Your opponent is at bat with bases loaded. They have an 8-4 lead with one out. Their # 7 hitter in an 11 kid lineup is up; it is a nice day with a dirt infield.
Question: Infield in or...?
Would you change if #2 or 3 hitter was up.
What if you were in the 6th inning with only one more at bat left for you to catch up?
At what score would you change that strategy?

Answer
Ted,

I'm going to suggest that you pull the infield in.  If it were college baseball I'd probably suggest corners in, muddle at DP depth...but I suspect the number of DP's turned in Pony League...maybe even HS...make it a long shot.  I would continue the same strategy in the 6th as well.

Keep in mind...my belief is that "the book" as it applies to MLB doesn't work at every level.  Many variables change as do the percentage of success in certain situations.  I think you are best to create your own "book" as it applies to you particular level of play.  Just to give you a couple of examples of what I mean:

In college baseball I:

Didn't believe in "don't make the 1st or 3rd out at 3rd base.  There are still enough errors, infield hits, missed opps. to turn two, bad hops, balks and passed balls to make being at 3rd more valuable than being at second.

Didn't bat a "bat control guy" second.  Over the course of a 60 game season my 2 hole hitter would get 40-50 more at bats than my 7 hole hitter.  Who did I want to have more opportunities to impact the game...the better hitter.  So I batted high OBP / OPS guys 1-2.  Seemed to work out as we averaged over 1 run per inning during my career.

Hope that helps,

Pat