Posted by Jason Wojciechowski on September 16, 2014 at 1:32 PM
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A's fans already have a position on bunting vs. the shift thanks to the stupid Bo Porter - Jed Lowrie contretemps (and let's just take a moment to savor Jed Lowrie being the A's nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award), but just in case you didn't already: if you take your third baseman away from third base, it would be a dereliction of duty for a hitter not to at least ponder the possibility of bunting the ball that direction, regardless of score or anything else. It's the great trade-off, and you don't get to have it both ways. (As Sam Miller has noted, though, that's entirely the point of unwritten rules: using shame to get the other team to act against their self-interest.)
Anyway, I think a good article to pair with Grant's is Zachary Levine's recent piece at Baseball Prospectus about when a potential no-hitter starts getting real. He uses stats. In this case, we learn from those stats that in games played since 1950, teams have completed no-hitters 2.05 percent of the time when they've not allowed a hit through four innings. That's a pretty miniscule shot that Domonic Brown "took away" by bunting for a hit against Andrew Cashner.