Projo Sox Blog

It's an old debate that came into play once again last night, with Josh Beckett taking a no-hitter late into the game in Detroit.

Is it an "unwritten rule" of baseball that you don't bunt to break up a pitcher's no-hitter? How late in the game is too late to put down a bunt for a base hit? Is it acceptable in certain situations, but not in others? And are "unwritten rules" worth anything, anyway?

As it turned out, last night's bunt by Gerald Laird, who was leading off the sixth inning with the Tigers trailing, 4-0, was not what ended Beckett's no-hit bid. Laird's bunt went foul, and he later struck out looking. In the seventh, Curtis Granderson broke up the no-hit bid with a solid single, and in the eighth Beckett predictably drilled Laird with a pitch.

The episode called to mind a 2001 game between the San Diego Padres and the eventual World Series champion Arizona Diamondbacks. With Curt Schilling taking a perfect game into the eighth inning of a 2-0 game, San Diego's Ben Davis blooped a bunt single. D-Backs players spent much of the rest of the game shouting obscenities at Davis, and manager Bob Brenly later called the bunt a "chicken" move.

I write this in defense of Davis and Laird. It would be one thing if the score in either of these games was 10-0, but in both of these cases, the batters were facing manageable deficits. In Davis' case, San Diego needed just two runs to tie the game -- and a player's first obligation must be to get a win for the team that is paying his salary, not being fair to the other team's pitcher.

In the case of Laird, Beckett was throwing tremendous baseball, but he was still 12 outs away from the no-hitter. Laird was leading off the sixth and trying to get something going for an offense that was struggling. If Detroit had had one hit, people might have looked at it as a smart baseball move. So because there's one fewer hit people look at it as a violation of baseball's secret code, worthy of being hit by a pitch in a player's next at-bat?

Doesn't make sense to me.

 Tags  Gerald Laird Josh Beckett

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