Major League Baseball

The art of bunting: Giants use small ball to take NLCS lead

Published Oct. 14, 2014 9:34 p.m. ET

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Erik Malinowski

When Game 3 of the National League Championship Series mattered most and the San Francisco Giants just couldn’t get a bunt down, that’s when Gregor Blanco started talking to himself.

“Calm down, plant your feet better, and just put it down,” he thought. And then: “Just run as fast as you can.”

The St. Louis Cardinals’ defense took care of the rest.

“Anybody can swing for base hits,” said Giants starting pitcher Tim Hudson, smiling and probably more than a little relieved after a so-so Game 3 start. “This is how we do it.”

In the final act of an extra-inning affair that seemed to hinge on outright sorcery in lieu of any other reasoning, Blanco’s sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the 10th inning forced Cardinals reliever Randy Choate to throw wide left of second baseman Kolten Wong – who was covering first base on the play - allowing a streaking Brandon Crawford to race around third with the winning run in a dramatic 5-4 victory.

The Giants now lead the series 2-1, and stand poised to take command in Game 4 as they send Ryan Vogelsong, who has never lost in the postseason, to the hill to face St. Louis’ Shelby Miller on Wednesday night.

On a windy day at AT&T Park, where even the most rudimentary outfield plays proved especially difficult, it was Blanco’s well-placed bunt that made all the difference, but the sequence leading up to that decisive moment was anything but simple or conventional.

Cardinals manager Mike Matheny slotted in lefty Randy Choate to start the 10th, hoping that his unusual arm angle and sinker-slider repertoire would keep the Giants off-balance enough as they turned over the order.

“The guys had already known what our defensive play was going to be on a bunt,” Matheny said after the game. “They got the bunt down and we just didn’t make the play.”

Crawford, the No. 8 hitter, opened the frame by working an eight-pitch walk, prompting Giants manager Bruce Bochy to call for left-fielder Juan Perez (hitting in the No. 9 slot after coming in during a double switch in the seventh) to lay down the often-unloved, much-derided sacrifice bunt.

Even with Choate somewhat preoccupied, throwing over to first three times to keep Crawford close, Perez was unable to get anything in the field of play, bunting a couple of sinkers foul on the first two offerings.

So Perez had to swing away — fortunately for the Giants. His hard single to left provided an eventual setup for Blanco’s heroics, with the winning run now on second with no outs.

“Luck is created by you executing sometimes,” Bochy said. “We might have got a little lucky there with Perez.”

Hudson, who came out in the seventh but had made his way back into the dugout by that point, was confident his team would pull something out late, even after blowing a four-run lead earlier.

“Juan getting that base hit right there really put those guys’ backs to the wall,” Hudson said. “It was an exciting inning. It unfolded just how we planned it.”

Hudson’s innermost optimism aside, few could’ve predicted that a bunt from Blanco would send most everyone in the stadium home with delirium, especially when he, much like Perez before him, couldn’t lay one down on his first try.

But one more sinker from Choate, which sank right over the middle of the plate and thigh-high, was just what Blanco was looking for.

“It’s not easy to run against lefties with that movement,” said the left-handed-hitting Blanco, who jumped out of the box and raced for first after his ball stayed fair. Once Choate’s throw sailed up the first base line, it was only a matter of if Crawford would score the winning run or if Blanco, not all that far behind, would bypass him en route to home.

Now, the Giants lead the NLCS 2-1, as they did against the Phillies in 2010, and Matheny is left searching for a spark to get his club back into contention. As he softly said after the loss, “Just comes down to doing the little things right.”

Sometimes, that means getting a bunt down when you need one, but also finding a better way when you don’t.

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