Fielder straying from the bag

[rickh150]

Falling under the topic of Brewer problems not talked about, Fielder straying from the base needs to be corrected by coaches. On many of the bunts that are fielded by the pitcher, catcher, or 3B, Fielder needlessly keeps coming to the plate. This seems harmless to many, I suppose, but all it does is increase the difficulty of the play to be made at first with Weeks chugging over to cover the base. Most recently, on a chopping bunt by the Mets' Reyes in front of the plate, Fielder needlessly continued charging the play instead of retreating to the bag. This made Weeks have to beat Reyes to the bag, something he should have done but didn't.Still, if Fielder would stay tighter to the bag, tougher plays become routine.

[endaround]

That the way it supposed to be done. Going back would only lead to indecision.

[dadofandrew]

Prince cannot see where the bunt is and then race in. If he does that, he'll not have time to get to the bunt. He also does not have the speed to charge in, stop, and beat Weeks back to the bag.

 

On the Reyes bunt in question, Rickie was there easily, Kendall made a poor throw, and was correctly given the E. Good throw gets him easy, and Weeks is lucky he was not injured on the play.

 

As End stated, that's the way every team makes the play.

 

On a related note, I wonder if teams will figure out they should be bunting on the CC/Prince combo early and often, especially when CC is "on". Between their size, general disdain for defense, and CC falling off toward 3B, a hitter with speed should have success about 50% the time on a fair ball. I'm surprised no one has done it yet.

[RightFieldCoder]

I don't like him straying from the bag with a runner on first. He starts walking off the bag and jumps back when he identifies that it will be a pickoff throw. This gives the runner an advantage to getting back.

[jeffy]

I thought this was going to be about him going too far toward second base on some ground balls, when he should just let the second baseman get them and get his butt over to first to take the throw.

 

As has been pointed out, on a bunt he is suppose to come in and the the second baseman is supposed to cover the base.