Minnesota-Detroit: Safety Squeeze Fails; Twins 7, Tigers 2

Michael Cuddyer has used the last three games to show us his "after" picture. Gone are the mechanical glitches or bad batting eye judgments. He's hitting a ton. There was a homer yesterday and a two-run triple against Detroit tonight. His rejuvenation looks complete.

He had a fine night, going two for three with a walk, but I want to look at just one play from tonight's game, a squeeze play featuring Cuddyer.

It's a safety squeeze, not a suicide squeeze, and tonight it was the wrong choice.

The suicide squeeze is as do-or-die as the name suggests, but the truth is, it’s a pretty high percentage play. Batter and runner must have their skills in hand, but there’s little the defense can do to foil them. If it doesn’t work, the players have only themselves to blame.

The ingredients are: a man on third, a batter capable of bunting, and less than two outs. It’s a plain squeeze play if the batter bunts and the runner sizes things up and heads for home. To qualify as a suicide squeeze, the runner takes off as the pitcher releases the ball.

Therein lies the risk. Leaving early means that even a shoddy bunt will probably still be enough, as the runner has such a good head start. But if the batter fails to make contact or misses the sign that the play is on, the runner is, as we say of chickens, broasted.

A high percentage play, but risks remain. The bunt doesn’t have to make the hall of fame, but it does have to rattle about long enough to get that runner home. And the dreaded popup will disgrace the batter and end the inning with a double play.

Speaking of which, outs have an effect on the suicide squeeze. You generally wouldn’t try it with no outs since the odds of scoring the runner on third with conventional hitting are higher. And it’s out of the question with two outs, as the batter is safe only under unusual circumstances.

This means the defense has an easy time figuring out it’s coming, but still can’t do much about it. It’s tough to pitch a ball that a batter can’t bunt—bunting failures all lie with the batter’s own reflexes and aptitude.

Aside from guessing right and pitching out, there’s little the infielders can do about the squeeze even if they know it’s coming. The defense is reduced to scrabbling for the rolling bunt and making the best decision about throwing home or accepting the sacrifice and nailing the batter at first.

I have never seen it happen, but research reveals that a pitcher can do one thing to negate the scheme. If the runner breaks so soon that the pitcher sees the play is on, he might have the presence of mind to intentionally hit the batter. That makes it a dead ball which returns the runner to third. Now, baseball is rich in tradeoffs—there are sacrifices, defensive shifts, and pitchouts in which one side gives up something in hopes that something worse is averted. But hitting a batter to avoid a squeeze? It sounds like a mere academic possibility.

Tonight, the Twins have Michael Cuddyer on third and Nick Punto at the plate. If Jim Leyland, the Detroit skipper, has even glanced at Punto’s stats, he’ll know that Punto is made for squeeze bunting, not least because he isn’t made for many other hitting categories. The Twins have no outs, so they’re letting Punto’s buntability outweigh the conventional big inning. The only question is which pitch, and whether to send Cuddyer in suicide mode or not.

Punto’s bunt is decent, but Cuddyer is held until contact. The Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera has enough time to field the ball and wing it home, where sturdy Gerald Laird is planted to receive the ball before he receives the runner. Cuddyer slams into him, but the ball stays in the glove. Punto’s on first with the worst consolation prize; Cuddyer is out.

What’s special tonight is the failure of the play. The suicide squeeze would almost certainly have worked. I only got one replay to watch the thing fall apart, and the camera never showed me Cuddyer’s jump off third. I draw my conclusion not from direct evidence but from the percentages on the play.

The outcome, in this particular game, is that sacrificing Cuddyer for Punto didn’t end the Twins’ scoring program. Alexi Casilla would drive Punto in, along with Delmon Young on base after being hit by a pitch. The Twins score 5 runs in the inning.

Francisco Liriano got his first win of the year, and his route there was direct: pitch well, get run support. The Twins scored so little in Liriano’s previous four starts that he should not be carrying the burden of a 1-4 record all by himself.

Facing Edwin Jackson, the Twins score 1 run in the second and seem about to make their usual meager offering on behalf of Liriano. But in the seventh inning they come alive with five runs, and then tack on another in the ninth.

Liriano gives up a solo homer to Cabrera, and Matt Guerrier in relief allows a sacrifice RBI to Magglio Ordonez. That wraps up the Tigers’ assault. And a strong 7-2 win sets up the Twins for the final game of two in Detroit.