Bunt

Gilman first baseman Ryan Ripken, tall and lanky, pounds his fist in his glove as he watches his pitcher Matt Collins get in position for his next throw. "We're all going off movement and putting pressure on the batter," said Ripken, a senior who will be attending South Carolina in the fall. As the pitcher pulls his arm back, Ripken rushes toward home plate. It's a move other teams make. Gilman coach Larry Sheets calls it "typical bunt defense". But seldom do you see a first basemen get as close to the batter as Ripken did Monday.

It was the second inning and Orioles were already in position to blow the game open. Mark Reynolds had started the inning off with a home run - his fourth in six games. Then Manny Machado doubled and Omar Quintanilla walked. There were no outs, and with Nick Markakis up, the Orioles had Red Sox starter Clay Buchholz on the ropes. On the first pitch of the at bat, Markakis tried to get a bunt down and bounced the ball right in front of the plate. Boston catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia had plenty of time to throw out Machado at third, which wouldn't have been the end of the world if Markakis was running out the bunt.

It was a good idea Phil Rogers Chicago Tribune Good baseball is always about doing what's called for in the situation. Evan Longoria's bunt attempt in the middle of Dallas Braden's perfect game on Sunday was a good idea at the time, and well within anyone's understanding of baseball etiquette. Longoria was leading off the fifth inning, with Tampa Bay trailing 4-0. While he's a power hitter, the four-run deficit meant the Rays needed a big inning. He was only thinking about getting on base to spark that when he tried to bunt Braden's first pitch for a hit. He fouled it off and would go on to strike out. Afterward, Braden called the try "intelligent," and he was right.

This has been Orioles rookie Wei-Yin Chen's first foray into interleague play, where American League pitchers are forced to bat in National League parks, but the Taiwanese left-hander has already seen enough to know he's not a fan. “Not really, because I hate hitting,” Chen said through an interpreter. But Chen and the Orioles left Turner Field on Sunday afternoon able to boast that they beat the Braves at their own game - excelling in an NL style of baseball that leans on manufactured runs, solid pitching and technique-minded defense - for a 2-0 series-clinching win over Atlanta.

It was a good news/bad news situation for Curtis Goodwin in the fifth inning last night.The good news was that he showed he hasn't forgotten one of his best offensive weapons -- the bunt. The bad news was that he didn't get the ball on the ground and it was caught by Boston first baseman Mo Vaughn.When he first joined the Orioles and was on a mercurial .500 (batting average) ride that everyone knew couldn't continue, Goodwin was successful in his first two attempts to bunt for a hit.His early success had a dramatic effect -- those ground-ball singles Goodwin has been able to squeeze through the right side are not complete accidents.

Putting the ball down in order to get a batting average up is not a completely lost art. Just one that needs an occasional reminder.The Orioles, in a subtle way, have been doing just that lately with Brady Anderson. His power gives him an added dimension for a speed player, but the ability to bunt more often for a base hit would enhance his overall effectiveness as a leadoff hitter.Recently, it has been noted that Anderson has, in baseball lingo, "put the ball on the ground" more than he has in the past two years.

When Jamie Moyer got dinked for two runs in the first inning of the Orioles' 4-3 loss to Toronto on Friday night, the most artistic hit came off a bat that wasn't even swung.It was a bunt single by an unexpected source, Paul Molitor, that drove in the first run of the game and set up the second. Coming from one of the game's top hitters, in an unlikely situation (runners on first and third with nobody out), it was yet another demonstration of Molitor's do-it-all offensive ability.The perfectly placed roller along the third base line was an indication of how effective a drag bunt can be. It was also a reminder that the art is lost on all but a few skilled players.

More often than not, a sacrifice bunt turns out to be just that -- the sacrifice of an out.However, there are rare instances, when the execution is perfect on the offensive end, that the play becomes the key factor not only in an inning, but also in a game. Such was the case for the Orioles in Monday night's 4-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.Even though Jack Voigt's seventh-inning bunt single didn't produce the big inning it could have, it did set up what proved to be the winning run. And it should be pointed out that although the "book" dictated a sacrifice attempt in that situation, it wasn't manager Johnny Oates' first strategical choice.

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- On the first day, Bobby Bonilla bunted. Check that. He attempted to bunt.It was a rude (and hilarious) awakening for the highest-paid player in baseball, an honor he is expected to concede whenever Ryne Sandberg puts pen to contract.No sooner had Bonilla slipped into a New York Met uniform -- No. 25, for those scoring at home -- and joined his new teammates for a workout yesterday than he found himself in an uncomfortable position: crouched in a batting cage, with his hands spread far apart on the weapon that will earn him $29 million during the next five seasons.

It was a seemingly trivial exchange, a routine conversation between a manager and his leadoff man. But it was an exchange that showed how far Mike Hargrove has come, and how he already is making a difference with the Orioles. Hargrove drew criticism last season in Cleveland for failing to communicate with players. Brady Anderson drew criticism in Baltimore for failing to execute a sacrifice bunt in Texas under former manager Ray Miller. Well, there was Hargrove before yesterday's game, thanking Anderson for two pivotal sacrifice bunts that the player delivered in Saturday's 2-1 victory over Detroit in 10 innings.

Right-hander Jake Arrieta's demotion to the bullpen didn't last long. Arrieta will start tonight against the Pirates here at Camden Yards, as Orioles manager Buck Showalter decided to push scheduled starter Brian Matusz back two days after he bunted a ball off his nose before Tuesday's game. Arrieta, who has lost eight of his last nine starts, will work on normal rest, which made the decision easy for the Orioles. Arrieta was told he would start about four hours before the game.

Gilman first baseman Ryan Ripken, tall and lanky, pounds his fist in his glove as he watches his pitcher Matt Collins get in position for his next throw. "We're all going off movement and putting pressure on the batter," said Ripken, a senior who will be attending South Carolina in the fall. As the pitcher pulls his arm back, Ripken rushes toward home plate. It's a move other teams make. Gilman coach Larry Sheets calls it "typical bunt defense". But seldom do you see a first basemen get as close to the batter as Ripken did Monday.

The firepower in their bullpen makes it easy for the Washington Nationals to envision life without Drew Storen, until the ninth inning arrives and the score is tied. Storen will visit Dr. James Andrews today for a second opinion on his elbow, the first step in a process that may leave him sidelined for half the season. The Nationals will continue to survey their options without the man to whom their ninth innings belong. Long after Edwin Jackson had left his first start for the Nationals on Monday, the New York Mets used a calamitous ninth inning to rally to a 4-3 win at Citi Field and remain unbeaten.

It's not every day when the team you cover trades its No. 1 starter, so it was a pretty busy day here on the Insider. But since the water-cooler talk about the Orioles dealing Jeremy Guthrie might carry over for 24 hours, we wanted to throw a couple more Guthrie-related tidbits to digest with your morning coffee and Cheerios. Guthrie had an interesting answer when asked by Rockies reporters Monday evening about hitting now that he's in the National League. He admitted he's a poor hitter and added a little self-deprecating humor - maybe a little too much: “You know what, I'm not good.

On a night when the league's most dominant hurler was trying to put an exclamation point on the best season for a pitcher in two decades and on a night when a likely Hall of Famer made international baseball history, the Orioles' 6-5 victory over the Detroit Tigers came down to two unheralded rookies who combine to weigh about as much as one NFL lineman. Matt Angle and Kyle Hudson couldn't have come up much bigger, however, Saturday night before a sellout crowd at Comerica Park that was hoping to witness Justin Verlander become the first pitcher since the Oakland Athletics' Bob Welch in 1990 to win 25 or more games.

Sixteen years after competing in his first motorsports race on the Camden Yards parking lot, Monkton professional driver Marc Bunting is returning to the drivers' seat and his roots. Bunting is putting together Team Baltimore Racing, a sports car team, that will compete in the American Le Mans Series race here Sept. 2 as part of the Baltimore Grand Prix weekend. "With the Baltimore race happening, it renewed my interest," said Bunting, 42. "It will be fun to race around Baltimore — legally.

Tiny came up big while home runs were the order yesterday at the opening of the seventh Cal Ripken 12-and-under World Series in Aberdeen. At least one homer was hit in four of six games, two of them game-winners, but it was a bunt by one of the smallest players in the tournament, 3-foot-7 Anson Arruda, that carried defending champion Hilo, Hawaii, to a 2-0 victory over Kennewick, Wash. Hilo and Kennewick opened the series in the first game ever played at the Ripken Academy's Fenway field, which has a mini- Green Monster in left field.

DEAR CAL -- I am 15 and play high school and Babe Ruth baseball. I have decent speed and am told many times to bunt. But I find it hard to bunt an inside pitch down the third base line. Should I take the pitch down the first base line or should I try to bring my hands closer to my body and still try to put it down the third base line? Joshua Plowman, Greenville, N.C. DEAR JOSHUA -- We like to teach players to bunt the ball where it is pitched, just as with hitting. Doing that increases your chances of being successful.

Robert L. Bunting Sr., a veteran of World War II who was wounded at Iwo Jima and later became a tile setter, died of lung disease April 17 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in downtown Baltimore. He was 87 and lived in Hamilton. Born in Baltimore and raised on Forrester Avenue, he attended a public vocational school and assembled aircraft at the old Glenn L. Martin plant in Middle River. He joined the Marine Corps during World War II and served in the Pacific. He was wounded in the left arm during the Battle of Iwo Jima and spent two years at Bethesda Naval Hospital.