PHOTO BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell speaks with reporters prior to a game.
By STEVE KRAUSE
A bunt is defined as the gentle tapping of a pitched ball without swinging, the objective being to make it more difficult to field.
But we don’t have to define it, do we? If you’re reading this column, you know what a bunt is. You also know that it can be quite a weapon.
You also know the Red Sox seem to be pathologically averse to employing the bunt — even in situations that scream out for it.
Before we delve into this, there are various schools of thought on giving the opposition an out, even if it’s a productive one. The legendary Earl Weaver, who managed the Baltimore Orioles to four pennants while winning only one World Series, hated the bunt. As Weaver was given to pontificating dissertations on almost any subject, he was outspoken about his hatred of the bunt.
Weaver thought bunting was nothing more than a waste of an out. He’d have preferred to have his top two hitters either hit or walk their way on, and then have the thumpers (Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Brooks Robinson, Don Baylor, Eddie Murray) knock one out of the park. His motto, after all, was “pitching and 3-run homers.”
However, if you don’t have those thumpers in your lineup, and have to be more creative in scoring runs, sometimes small ball (the act of moving runners along, making productive outs, and bunting), can net you some positive results.
Except if your name is John Farrell.
Last Friday night, when Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia pulled off a double steal, I’m sure at least half of Red Sox Nation had to blink twice. Naturally, both runners ended up scoring and the Sox got a walkoff win against the Yankees.
You’d think Farrell would have filed that away in his memory, but the next day … the very next day … in a game that ended up with the Red Sox losing in 16 innings, they got runners on first and second, with nobody out, and did not bunt the runners along.
Chris Young ended up striking out for the first out (unforgivable as far as I’m concerned), and thus, when Tzu-Wei Lin lined a ball into the gap in right with one out — one that Aaron Judge ran down — there was no runner on third to score the winning run. This sounds chillingly like Clarence the Angel in “It’s A Wonderful Life:”
“Every man on that transport died! Harry wasn’t there to save them, because you weren’t there to save Harry.”
Even Tuesday night, despite Hanley Ramirez hitting a walk-off home run in the 15th inning to win the game against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Red Sox had earlier opportunities to move runners along. Andrew Benintendi led off the 10th inning by getting by a pitch. But Dustin Pedroia did not bunt. Instead, he grounded into a double play.
That meant that there was nobody on base when Ramirez hit a double that would have — had Pedroia done what he should have done — scored Benintendi with the winning run and allowed us all to go to bed a little earlier. Cue Clarence again.
You can make the case that the Red Sox are still trying to figure it all out without David Ortiz in the middle of the lineup. Without Ortiz, the Red Sox don’t have a hitter that strikes fear into the hearts and minds of opposing pitchers. Not one.
This makes pitching to Red Sox hitters much easier. And it doesn’t help the Red Sox that they’re awful at producing the runners in scoring position.
There are, of course, no hard, fast rules on when to employ the bunt and when to go for the seats. A lot of it depends on who’s pitching. If you get a runner on base in the early innings, and Chris Sale is on the mound, you might try to play a little small ball to get that run home, figuring that Sale’s not going to give up much.
On the other hand, you might have this year’s version of Rick Porcello going, which means your objective is to put up crooked numbers every chance you get (something the Sox have not done for poor Rick).
By now, though, Farrell and the Red Sox should have figured out that Ortiz made the entire lineup more formidable and that without his bat, it’s easier to pitch to these players. Just because the Red Sox have historically sat back and waited for the big inning, they’re far less likely to do that now that they’ve been in the past.
Pssst. John. Try bunting once in awhile. You might be surprised at the results.