It was exactly 36 years ago Tuesday that Kirk Gibson hit his famous walk-off home run off Dennis Eckersley and hobbled around the bases in Dodger Stadium, a 1988 World Series Game 1-winning shot that was so stunning it elicited this famous response from Jack Buck on the national radio broadcast: “I don’t believe … what I just saw!”
If Buck were still alive and in Chavez Ravine on Sunday night, he might have had a similar reaction to a pair of peculiar plays that lacked the drama of a walk-off homer but seemed almost as rare.
Not once, but twice in the first four innings of the National League Championship Series opener against the New York Mets, the Dodgers dropped perfectly placed sacrifice bunts, practically a lost art in today’s game.
Yes, you read that correctly. A Dodgers team that led all of baseball with a .446 slugging percentage, ranked third with 233 home runs and had all of 10 sacrifice bunts in 162 regular-season games gave up two outs to advance runners on the basepaths.
And guess what? The small-ball strategy worked, as both runners who moved up on bunts by No. 9 hitter Tommy Edman and No. 8 batter Gavin Lux scored in a 9-0 Game 1 victory over the Mets, one on a Shohei Ohtani RBI single in the second inning and one on an Edman RBI single in the fourth.
“It’s just playoff baseball,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “The truth of the matter is that the postseason is different than the regular season. It’s about 90 feet and giving yourself … some of that was making sure Shohei had a chance to get up.
“To [Shohei’s] and Tommy’s credit, driving in those runs was huge. And Gavin getting the bunt down, Tommy getting the bunt down, it’s just team baseball. If you can get a guy in scoring position, it just creates a little bit more stress.”
“We’re always working on bunts in case the situation arises, and it kind of made sense in those situations today,” Edman said. “Obviously, I wanted to get the guy to second for Shohei, and it worked out. In the playoffs, one play can make a huge difference, so to be able to execute in situations like that was huge.”
“I’ve been working on it a bit since the season ended, just so in those situations where it might be a tougher lefty or where we need to stay out of a double play, I could get it down,” Lux said. “I did it a lot coming up through the minor leagues, so it’s nothing foreign. Just kind of been working on it, doing whatever it takes to get it down.”
The bunt came with a price. Lux tweaked his right hip flexor coming out of the box and was pulled from the game as a precaution in the seventh inning. He said the injury is not serious.
“I don’t think we sac bunted once or twice all year, but you need to stay out of a double play, especially when you have Shohei coming up behind you,” Lux said. “You want him to have that opportunity with a guy in scoring position, so it’s our job at the bottom to get [the bunt] down and stay out of the double play.”
Putting runners on base for Ohtani might be the key to winning the World Series for the Dodgers. The presumptive NL most valuable player and leadoff man is six for eight with runners on base in six playoff games and 0 for 16 with the bases empty. Ohtani is 16 for 19 with runners in scoring position dating to the last week of the regular season.
“I don’t think there’s a different approach for him with runners on base,” Lux said of Ohtani. “He’s the best player on the planet, so I think he’s just finding hits with guys in scoring position.
“I think, as you saw tonight, when there are guys out there, he’s getting it done, so it’s our job at the bottom of the order to keep finding different ways to get on base, whether it’s bunting, walking, hitting, whatever it is.”
