Yesterday’s start didn’t work out particularly well for Rich Hill. In his first appearance since bringing a perfect game into the ninth inning and then losing a no-hitter (and the game) in the 10th, the Dodgers left-hander conceded a single to the first Diamondbacks hitter he faced on Tuesday. He also conceded hits to the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh batters he faced. By the time he’d recorded his third out in Arizona, he’d allowed five runs. His club’s win expectancy? Less than 13%.
Hill’s night wasn’t a complete shambles, however. Because, even en route to allowing six runs, he also did this:
What this is, is Rich Hill executing a nearly perfect drag bunt against Zack Godley and the rest of the Arizona infield in the the third inning. This is, of course, unusual — a fact which even the casual viewer might have gathered by the reaction of Dodgers first-base coach George Lombard.
While it’s not uncommon for pitchers to bunt — nearly a quarter of their balls in play as batters are bunts, noted Eli Ben-Porat yesterday for the Hardball Times — almost all of those are sacrifice attempts. Of the 539 successful bunts recorded by pitchers this year, only 45 (or, 8.3%) have resulted in hits — and many of those batted balls ultimately classified as “bunt hits” are actually just sacrifice attempts with extenuating circumstances.
Consider the case of Cardinals righty Carlos Martinez. Martinez currently leads all pitchers with three bunt hits. As one can observe, however, he hasn’t really intended to reach base in any one of those instances.
Here’s one of those so-called “bunt hits,” from May 13th:
A second, from June 5th:
And the most recent one, from August 18th:
All three of Martinez’s bunt hints have actually been squeeze attempts in which the fielder has endeavored to record an out at home. In all three cases, the fielder has failed in that endeavor. As a result, a hit has been assessed — almost by default — to Martinez.
The only other pitcher with multiple bunt hits is Zach Davies. Both of them look very much like the sort for which Carlos Martinez is responsible.
Here’s the first one, from a July 25th game against the Nationals:
And from later that same game, on a play that very much resembles an error, but is apparently not an error.
Between Martinez and Davies, that’s five bunts scored as hits, but never intended to be hits — certainly not in the way Hill intended to bunt for a hit.
The difference, of course, is that Martinez and Davies were batting with men on base in every instance. Hill attempted his bunt with no one aboard. And this, for pitchers, is a much more rare event.
A data query by my colleague Jeff Zimmerman reveals that, including Hill’s attempt last night, pitchers have bunted with the bases empty on just 13 occasions this year. Along with Carlos Carrasco, Hill is the only pitcher credited with two bases-empty bunt attempts.
His first one, back on June 3rd, actually caused some trouble for the Milwaukee defense:
Notably, Dodgers pitchers account for five of the 13 bases-empty bunt attempts — and the only successful one before last night, executed by Julio Urias on May 9th.
Urias’s effort resembled Hill’s from last night:
