Fernando Tatís Jr. becomes the third straight Padres hitter to bunt to start the bottom of the fifth inning.
FeaturedMLBBy Michael Dixon on

There was a time when seeing three consecutive bunts on three consecutive pitches in a Major League Baseball game wouldn’t have been too strange. But that timeframe is long past.

While bunts were a prominent part of baseball until recent years, the complete inside baseball attack went the way of the dodo bird at around the start of the live ball era — in 1920. But on Saturday afternoon, we got a throwback, thanks to the San Diego Padres.

The Padres were locked in a 0-0 tie with the Tampa Bay Rays heading into the bottom of the fifth inning. Ha-Seong Kim decided to use his legs to get on base. He bunted the first pitch he saw from Zach Eflin down the third base line, then beat the throw from Isaac Paredes. The next hitter was Trent Grisham, who decided to follow his teammate’s small ball approach. Grisham’s bunt was popped up but fell in a perfect place, right behind the pitcher’s mound, giving the Rays no chance to retire either runner.

So, the bottom of the San Diego order set the table perfectly for the top of the order, giving Fernando Tatís Jr. a golden RBI opportunity. Only, Tatís kept the ground attack going, bunting the first pitch he saw from Eflin. This time, though, Tampa got an out, with catcher Francisco Mejía making a nice play to retire Tatís. Still, the runners both advanced.

The entire sequence, from Eflin’s first pitch to Kim until Tatís was thrown out at first, took less than 100 seconds.

The strategy worked well. Kim scored on a sacrifice fly from Juan Soto. Then Grisham, who advanced to third on Soto’s sacrifice fly, scored when Paredes couldn’t get a throw off on a Manny Machado grounder to third.

One of the few things more old-school baseball people have in common with the analytics people is that neither loves the bunt. This is especially true now that the DH is universal and pitchers no longer have to hit for themselves.

So, this unique strategy being implemented definitely caught the eye of baseball fans.

[Photo Credit: Fox]

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