If there is one play that personifies this season for the Tampa Bay Rays, that illustrates exactly the way they play the game, it came Sept. 22 in the second game of a crucial doubleheader in New York against the Yankees.
The Rays led 1-0 in the seventh inning. They had runners at first and third with one out against Max Fried, a great fielding pitcher. Rays shortstop Taylor Walls pushed a perfect bunt between the mound and first base, allowing the runner on third to score -- and no Yankee covered second base. The Rays scored three in the inning and won the game 6-1.
"We have done that a lot this year,'' Rays manager Kevin Cash said. "It is very hard to defend.''
And so are the unpredictable Rays, in part because they bunt more than any team, and they bunt better than any team. They bunted 129 times this season, 40 times more than the second-place Brewers (89). The Rays had the most bunts for hit attempts with 84; next most were the Rockies (54). The Rays had the most sacrifice bunts with 45, and the most bunt hits with 49, 17 more than the next closest (again the Brewers). The Dodgers, by contrast? Had two bunt hits this year.
"Well, why would you ask anyone on the Dodgers to bunt?'' Cash asked with a laugh. "Look, we don't ask Junior [Caminero] to bunt. Or Yandy [Diaz]. Or [Jonathan] Aranda. But we have some guys who can do it.''
Speedy left fielder Chandler Simpson, who has not hit a home run in two major league seasons, had 14 bunt hits in 26 attempts this year. Center fielder Cedric Mullins had 12 in 14 attempts. Walls had 11 in 19 tries. They were second, third and fourth in bunt hits behind the Brewers' David Hamilton, who was 15-for-21.
"We didn't come into the season saying, 'We're going to bunt a lot more this year' -- it just kind of evolved,'' Cash said. "It caught fire, and guys would come in and say, 'Hey, I can do that.'"
"We recognized in spring training that we had speed on the roster, and we could make the bunt a weapon,'' Simpson said. "We chat it up a lot at the batting cage. This year has made me a much better bunter.''
On that bunt against the Yankees Sept. 21, Walls said: "I was given the option to bunt or not bunt, or to which side of the field to bunt. Because of how often we use the bunt, teams defend us differently. We just read the defense. We recognized early this season that the threat of a bunt can create chaos for the defense.''
The architect of the bunt brigade has been Rays third base coach Brady Williams, the son of Jimy Williams, a former major league player and a former manager for the Blue Jays and Red Sox.
"My dad was an elite teacher of bunting,'' Brady Williams said. "He taught all the Braves in the '90s how to bunt. I was watching all his bunt videos when I was a kid. I was the mannequin. I would be the guy standing at the plate. I was in charge of bunting for 10 years in the minor leagues [with the Rays], but then bunting kind of went away, which is unfortunate because without it, baseball got boring. But bunting is coming back. It's amazing how exciting the game can be when a bunt play is executed perfectly.''
Early in the season, in a May matchup against the Giants, the Rays executed a perfect safety squeeze bunt to score a run and tie the score.
"It just catapulted from there,'' Williams said. "The buy-in wasn't difficult. We have bunting practice every day at home. We started with three guys. Then four, six, then all of a sudden, we had eight guys, 10 guys that showed up early to bunt. During batting practice, we have a running joke: 'If we bunt, we win. We haven't bunted today.'
"They say bunting is easy. It's easy if you practice it. If you don't, it's really hard.''
Williams, 47, "loves to talk about bunting.'' He grew up watching Brett Butler, one of the best bunters ever. In teaching Chandler, he often references what Butler did.
"It's all about putting pressure on the defense,'' Williams said. "When you execute a bunt, it's really hard to get an out given the responsibilities of the pitcher, the first baseman and the third baseman. Other teams don't know what we're going to do. And when you're not sure, that immediately gives us an edge.''
The Rays have elite pitching, a terrific defense and they have Caminero, one of the best power hitters in the game. Their hitters struck out the fewest times of any team in the major leagues, and their pitchers walked the fewest batters: Since 1950, the only other teams to accomplish both are the 2006 Minnesota Twins and 1986 Boston Red Sox. The Rays can beat you in so many ways, but in an era dominated by home runs, and the belief that you can't win without hitting home runs, the Rays stand out: They can beat you with a bunt.
