It would be inaccurate to trace baseball’s lagging popularity solely to the kind of drivel on display after a game last week.
There’s no doubting that the postgame whining — in some cases, a full, 140-character hissy fit — was a turnoff to the casual fan. It’s also proof that some of those bickering about unwritten rules may want to bring that gray, inner-cranial thinking device to customer service and see if they can get their 49 cents back.
In the ninth inning of a game between Baltimore and Minnesota, the Twins put on an infield shift to defend against Orioles hitter Chance Sisco.
Overloading one side of the infield is not an uncommon move these days against a pull hitter. It leaves only one player to cover an entire side of the infield, but puts three in place to defend the area where the batter is likely to hit the ball.
The rub is that a decent bunter can get a hit almost every time if he’s able to lay one down into the open space, which is what Sisco did in the game that his team trailed 7-0. Several Twins players made mopey references to the bunt as having broken an unwritten rule.
Newer baseball fans and others who just aren’t hip to the game’s sacred drift may wonder why the controversy. Bunting is within the rules – the written ones, even.
This apparently fails to appreciate the long-held understanding among players that the integrity of the game is paramount. Bunting against an infield shift is just not tolerated, for whatever goofball reason.
This incident was especially worthy of ridicule because the Orioles weren’t running up the score or embarrassing anyone. They were trying to come back from seven runs down and needed base runners.
Sisco reached base, the Orioles threatened but still lost 7-0 and afterward several Twins players registered their displeasure over the bunt. The Twins pitcher who threw the shutout, Jose Berrios, moaned about a bunt like that being bad for baseball, while second baseman Brian Dozier griped about not only the bunt, but also the fact that he was “getting hammered” in the aftermath because the context for his complaint wasn’t explained.
Poor fellow. First some guy bunts on their infield shift, and now this.
So far, there are no unwritten rules about stacking the infield to one side to defend against a pull hitter. It’s also still acceptable to play the infielders close with a runner on third and less than two out.
Since these unwritten rules have no real sort of clarity and don’t seem to be going away, it would be helpful to spell them out. Regarding the silent mandate that no batter shall bunt against a pitcher who has a no-hitter going, when exactly does a pitcher have a no-hitter officially “going?” Is it the seventh inning? Two out in the fourth? Every starting pitcher has a no-hitter “going” until he doesn’t.
Most of the unwritten-rule noise is testosterone-infused hogwash, and should be reconsidered. If it’s less than manly to stand in the box and dink the ball down the line instead of taking a proper macho cut, then why the secrecy in what pitch is coming next? Be a man and challenge the hitter. Tell him you’re about to blow a fastball by him and then do it.
Otherwise, deal as best you can with the devastation of a bunt.
While baseball tweaks the number of mound visits a team can make and how much dawdle time is allowed between pitches, those playing the game would do well to also run a little auto-maintenance and mothball these tired conventions. Silly whining like that of the Twins isn’t the reason that attendance has fallen in each of the last five years, but it’s insupportable to the fans baseball is trying to win back.
The world-gone-crazy conversation does not preclude our once-national pastime, which last week threw in its unintentionally hilarious two cents.