By
Steve Kallas (posted by Rick Morris)
This
was supposed to be an article solely on Derek Jeter’s brilliant bunt to help
give the Yankees a chance in what turned out to be a 5-4 big loss to the
Orioles on Saturday night. But after
first base ump Jerry Meals blew a pretty easy call at first when Mark Teixeira
dove head-first and beat the DP throw (turning a 5-5 tie into a 5-4 loss for
the Yankees), we’ll have to deal with that issue as well.
THE
BRILLIANT BUNT
The
art of the bunt long ago escaped most major leaguers, sabermetric guys and
others who categorize virtually all bunts with runners on first and second as
lthe same. When Jeter comes to bat, top
nine, down a run and runners on first and second (nobody out), the YES
announcers have a discussion about how Jeter won’t bunt, about how you don’t
want to give up an out in this situation, about how you don’t play for a tie on
the road.
But
it never dawned on these guys that a brilliant play at this point in the game
is to bunt FOR A HIT. If you lay down a beauty (Jeter did), you’ve
hit the jackpot (bases loaded, nobody out).
If they get you at first, your team is still set up to tie the game
(understand (many won’t) that when you bunt for a hit, you are not trying to
just move the runners over; but, if somebody makes a great play or you bunt
poorly, you are still in a position to tie up the game; if you execute (as
Jeter did), you’ve satisfied everybody).
So
what happens? Jeter doesn’t square and
give himself up; rather, he clearly bunts for a hit, lays down a beauty and
beats it without a throw. On TV, the
announcers essentially blame young Manny Machado for hesitating on the bunt somehow
believing (impossible) that Machado could have thrown out Jeter at first if he
(Machado) had not hesitated. Of course,
the bunt was so good that nobody was throwing out Jeter on that particular bunt
in that particular situation.
THE
BAD CALL
What
can you say? Teixeira, coming back from
a calf injury, is at the plate (after a Nick Swisher forceout), first and
third, one out, down by a run, ninth inning.
He hits a ground ball to second, Baltimore tries to turn a 4-6-3 double play as Teixeira
dives head first into first, clearly beating the throw. But first base ump Jerry Meals calls him out,
an obvious mistake in real time (and a terrible mistake on replay). Game over instead of a 5-5 tie with A-Rod
coming up.
Teixeira
was right. He was safe. He made some comments after the game about
the umps wanting to get out of there that will probably get him fined.
But
if Mark Teixeira just runs through the base, instead of diving head first into
the base, his entire body would have been past first and made the call a much
easier one for Jerry Meals. Teixeira, in
his defense, said after the game that he never dives into first but felt that
he couldn’t get there by running through the base. Give him the benefit of the doubt (after all,
he was injured, he busted it down the line and he WAS safe), but if he ran the
last eight feet the way he ran the first 82, it says here that it would have
been a much easier call for Meals, rather than hoping he can make the right
call on a play (a head first slide into the base) that umpires rarely have to
make (and, frankly, seem to be pre-conditioned to call the runner out when he
does dive head-first into first).
Umpires,
like baseball players, are creatures of habit and, when you take them out of
their “comfort” zone (by diving or even sliding into first rather than running
through the base), you run the risk of an ump missing a call; even an easy one.
As
a result, in a two-wild–card-one-game-playoff scenario, this call may come back
to haunt the Yankees.
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