To Bunt, or Not

On Saturday, June 8th 4-3 in a division rival match up against the Cubs, as the Reds were trying to win their way out from the division cellar, the Reds had Jonathan India on 2nd and no outs, and a 2 run lead. Manager David Bell sent Will Benson to the plate to sacrifice bunt. Benson started in right field against the right handed starter, but the Cubs had already gone to their bullpen and he was facing a southpaw, and Benson was hitting .095 against lefties. The bunt was successful, moving India to third. India scored on a TJ Friedl ground out, scoring a run. The Reds went on to win 4-3 - a margin that was established, in part, by this decision. At a glance, it seems obvious that the sacrifice bunt was the difference maker in a one run game, a great victory for small ball fans everywhere, but let's take a deeper look at this play, this inning, and everything else to determine if this was the right decision and if we would do it the same way.

For starters, let's look at everything that happened in that inning, and all possible likely outcomes. So, we have India on 2nd. Benson successfully sacrifices India to 3rd- 1 out. Friedl grounds out to the first baseman, scoring India. Elly De La Cruz singles to center, and Candelario flies out on a sliding catch to end the inning.

Before we jump to the conclusion that the run scored because of the Benson sacrifice bunt, let's take the play out of the vacuum and look at it in context of the whole inning. What would have happened if Benson didn't sacrifice bunt?

Assume Benson struck out, grounded out to third, pops out, or flies out to mid center field or left field. That's probably near 60% of outcomes. India stays on 2nd. 1 out. Friedl grounded out to 1st- India would move up to 3rd. Elly singles. India scores. Candy out. Reds score 1. Zero change in outcome. Reds win by 1.

Now assume Benson flies out to right, or grounds out to 1st or 2nd. Same effect as sacrifice bunt, India to third, score on Friedl ground out. No change. Reds win by 1.

Now, let's assume Benson walks or singles. Assume worst case scenario, and the Friedl ground out to 1st is a double play (unlikely since it was a bang bang play at 1st, but for the sake of argument). Now we are exactly where we were with the sacrifice bunt and India is either on third (walk) or scored (single) and there are two outs. Either way, India ends up scoring before or when Elly singles and the Reds score 1 run.

Assume the Cubs fail to turn the double play, and only manage one out on the Friedl groundout. Now you have a run in, a runner on base, and only 1 out for the De La Cruz single. That runner either scores or is at third, and you have 1 more batter to try to score more runs.

Imagine Benson doubles, triples, or hits a home run. In each of these scenarios, a 2nd run scores on the Elly single, AND you have 1 more out to try to get Elly to score.

While I've seen plenty of people praising the sacrifice bunt for bringing in the run in what ended up being a one run game, it turns out that it only ensured the worst possible outcome for that inning.

But Bell couldn't have possibly known that Friedl would ground out to allow the run to score or that Elly De La Cruz would single and likely drive in India regardless. So let's look from the point when the decision was being made.

For starters, let's look at run expectancy. In all of baseball, when there is a runner on second and no outs, the average number of runs that team scores is 1.10. When you have a runner on 3rd, and one out, the average number of runs that teams score is 0.95. In essence, if a team has runners on 2nd and no outs in 100 different innings in a season, they should score a total of 110 runs in those innings. However, if they have a runner on third and one out in 100 different innings over the course of a season, they should score 95 runs in those innings. The sacrifice bunt reduces the number of runs a team is likely to score. We can see that exemplified in the situations described above where not bunting could have led to more than one run, but nothing Benson could have reasonably done would have led to 0 runs scored.

But Bell wasn't sending a league average batter to face a league average hitter. We need to look at the context of the situation. The Reds were up 3-1, it was the 5th inning, and the Reds had just got into the Cubs bullpen already, and they brought in a left handed pitcher. Benson is hitting .095 against left handed pitching, and strikes out around 30% of the time against left handed pitchers. But you probably don't want to pinch hit for him, because the Cubs bullpen is right hand dominant, and the Reds just faced their primary left handed reliever in Smyly the night before. Bell had his left handed hitters in the lineup against the Cubs right handed starter. Taking Benson out in the fifth Almost certainly meant a less than optimal matchup later in the game. However, Benson also only had one career successful sacrifice bunt, and likely has little experience bunting the ball. Success was definitely not guaranteed.

So, with no knowledge of what was going to happen in the inning, Bell was left to choose between bringing in Fairchild/ Hurtubise in the 5th to replace Benson and likely face a right handed reliever later, have Benson face a LHP while only hitting .095, and risk a high percentage chance of an unproductive out, or sacrifice the runner to a slightly higher chance of scoring one run, but lower chance of scoring a big inning.

Honestly, I think Bell made the right decision. While hindsight shows us that the bunt was definitely not the determining factor in winning the game, and that India would have scored regardless of Benson's outcome, the decision to keep Benson in the game allowed favorable match-ups later and helped move a runner to third base in a low scoring game.

Steve Suther