Last week ol' Razzer rained down insults upon some poor guy whom he'd never met, who committed the cardinal sin of opining that the Jays should consider bunting more frequently. Turns out that said poor guy is a very decent fellow. Might he also have been, um, correct?
The situation last night: 8th inning, Jays suffering through another TFC-esque night on offence, leading 2-1 (as an aside: if you think the Jays' offence is on your last nerve, try attending game after game down at BMO Field, wearing your stupid fucking scarf despite the temperature being 30 degrees with 100 % humidity, without so much as the satisfaction of one single fucking goal in over a month). Olmedo and Stairs reach base (Olmedo for the third time in three at-bats, the little rascal), so we have first and second with none out and Lyle, Alex, and VW coming up. Would it have been so crazy in this situation for Lyle to drop one down?
I felt at the time that one run would pretty much wrap things up, so I thought the goal should have been ensuring one run rather than playing for the mythical big inning. If I recall correctly, the odds of scoring one run are pretty similar whether you have 1st and 2nd with none out, and 2nd and 3rd with one out - but with the way things have been going this year, I prefer our chances in the situation that contemplates not requiring an actual hit to score a run. So, for probably the first time all season, I was actively pleading for Gibby to call for a bunt. He didn't, Lyle promptly hit into a DP, we didn't score, the A's got one in the bottom of the 8th to tie it, and as far as I know the game is still ongoing.
Now by no means am I on the bunt-all-the-time bandwagon, but for eff's sake, must it be completely taken off the table? (Warning: crappy mock sportswriter analogy/attempt at erudition ahead:) Is the bunt to our offence as nuclear weapons are to the Obama foreign policy?
Thoughts, boys? Should Lyle have laid it down?
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6 comments:
First off- and I say this without contradicting myself- yes, the Jays should have bunted. I am a big fan of the situational bunt. Clearly that was the situation. My contention on bunting was with the blanket statement "The Jays need to bunt more". I felt by not giving specific examples and just throwing out numbers the writer was making a silly fucking argument. However, I think it is pretty much accepted by both empirical and theoretical followers of the game that the sac bunt has a place in the game, it's a question of when and where it takes place. Last nights example was the perfect when and were. I still would have not have had Overbay drop it down. Maybe pinch hit Reed and have Stairs move to first.
As I re-read my post, I note a disturbing similarity in style to the columns that Sarah Jessica Barbaro's character on Sex and the City would write, which she would read in voice-over and which I would invariably mock (not that I ever watched Sex and the City, but if I did, I probably would have mocked them).
I resolve that I will no longer write posts in which every paragraph ends with a catchy, pithy, and oh-so-provocative question to the reader.
Go Jays.
Why is the time stamp on our blog set to west coast time? I can only assume Canate is somehow responsible.
I don't want the many readers of our blog (that is to say, our friend John B.) to think I don't have anything better to do at 6:00 a.m. than draft a post about bunting.
Razzer, you out thunk me. I was just gonna point out that I'm not sure if Overbay would be able to lay down a bunt. But how sad is it bringing in a pinch-bunter? It speaks to Overbay's uselessness this season when you have no confidence he can get a hit, and doesn't (probably) have the skill set of a guy who doesn't get hits. Should I be single forever, or marry Mr.Big?
I set the time to Eastern so the boss knows that instead of waking up early to post you did it on the clock.
Randy Myers is equally dickish.
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