Kansas City Royals summon some Dead Ball Era ghosts

The Kansas City Royals sacrifice bunt and win; the Cleveland Indians don’t and lose.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if, in this season of rules experimentations, the most impactful change turned out to be one that took the game back to its Dead Ball days?

The Kansas City Royals beat the Cleveland Indians 3-2 in 10 innings Saturday by adopting a strategy that was thought to have gone out with John McGraw. The Royals scored the winning run on no hits with a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly.

The strategy was very much aided, of course, by one of those rules experiments…the one that starts all extra innings with a runner on second base. A second rules change – the 30- man roster – also came into play.

When Cleveland eschewed the sacrifice in the bottom of the 10th and failed to plate the tying run off KC closer Greg Holland, the Royals became the first team to take specific advantage of the new rule.

The Oakland Athletics did beat the Los Angeles Angels in extra innings Friday night, but the A’s won on Matt Olson’s grand slam. Oakland did start the bottom of the 10th with a runner, Marcus Semien, at second. But even if Semien had not been placed there to start the inning, Olsen’s home run still would have been a walk-off winner.

Neither the A’s nor the Angels, in the top of the 10th, attempted to bunt that lead runner to third base, preferring more standard methods. After Shohei Ohtani was placed at second to begin the top  of the 10th, Jared Walsh chopped a ground ball, to short that Semien turned into a fielder’s choice, retiring Ohtani.

Saturday afternoon in Cleveland, the Royals placed full faith and credit on small ball, and it worked so well it made one wonder why they weren’t wearing flannel unis. With Brett Phillips – pinch running for Alex Gordon – at second, Erick Mejia laid down a first pitch sacrifice bunt to Cleveland third baseman Jose Ramirez that moved the runner over. The use of Phillips and Mejia are significant to the 30-man roster change since there’s no guarantee either would be in a major league dugout if rosters had remained capped at last year’s 25 or the anticipated 26 for 2020.

Veteran Maikel Franco followed by lifting a high 1-1 curve ball from James Karinchak deep enough into center field to easily score Phillips. One run, no hits.

In the bottom of the 10th, Indians manager Terry Francona twice made the other decision…and paid for it.  With pinch runner Greg Allen placed at second, Francona never asked Bradley Zimmer to bunt him over. Eventually, Holland hit Zimmer with a 2-2 pitch, putting runners at first and second but also setting up a potential double play.

With Cesar Hernandez at bat, Francona again decided against signaling for a bunt to potentially move the tying and winning runs into scoring position. Instead, the licensed-to-swing Hernandez took an 0-2 slider over the heart of the plate and was called out on strikes.

With the bunt option foreclosed, Holland struck out both Ramirez and Francisco Lindor to end the game.

Only time will tell whether the old-time bunt strategy employed successfully Saturday by Mike Matheny and not at all employed by Terry Francona will turn out to be a big deal. But if the Kansas City Royals turn that strategy into three or four more extra inning victories, well…in a 60-game season with 16 teams making the playoffs those couple of extra wins could turn out to be the difference.