CLEVELAND, Ohio — Stephen Vogt expects that there will be plenty of people with different opinions about the way Cleveland’s bid for a perfect game ended on Wednesday. But the Guardians manager was pretty neutral when asked about Reds leadoff man TJ Friedl and his bunt single after 18 Cincinnati batters had been retired without reaching base.
“It’s a 2-0 game, seventh inning,” Vogt said after Cleveland survived to capture a 5-2 win at Progressive Field after a Reds rally that was sparked by Friedl’s bunt.
“Yeah, there’s a perfect game on the line, but you’re trying to win a game and it’s a tough left-on-left matchup,” Vogt said. “And they had not gotten antyhing going all night.”
But Vogt said he would not be surprised to see the play come up as a topic of debate, alluding to baseball’s “unwritten rules” and the strong opinions generated when players choose to ignore them. Typically it is frowned upon when a player bunts for a hit late in a game when a pitcher has a chance at a perfect game or no-hitter.
Cleveland owns the longest streak in the majors without a no-hitter or perfect game, spanning 43 years, two months and six days since Len Barker fired a perfecto against Toronto at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Tim Herrin was the fifth Guardians pitcher to take the mound in a bullpen game before Friedl surprised him by dragging a bunt up the first base line.
“There’s going to be people all over the spectrum on whether that’s okay or whether that’s not,” Vogt said. “It’s a good baseball play. You can’t knock him for trying to get something going.”
Friedl’s bunt, and errors by Herrin and Andrés Giménez allowed Cincinnati to cut Cleveland’s lead in half at 2-1. The Reds tied the score in the eighth against Hunter Gaddis on a double by Jake Fraley and base hits by Santiago Espinal and Noelvi Marte.
Friedl told reporters afterward that the situation made him comfortable with attempting the bunt in the seventh.
“If it was a starter in the game in the seventh inning, that’s different, but not in a bullpen game,” Friedl said.
Friedl is no stranger to reaching base via the bunt. He led the majors with 17 bunt base hits in 2023 and has three this season while missing 36 games due to injury, including a right hamstring strain that cost him two weeks.
“(Bunting) is what I do, it’s no surprise,” Friedl said. “I’m playing the ballgame. We were down two runs. I feel like myself again, running the bases on that bunt.”
Still, it would be hard to blame the Guardians for being upset with Friedl’s approach. Pitching coach Carl Willis said Friedl’s strategy, however you feel about unwritten rules, made sense and ultimately was effective.
“It’s tough to swallow on our side of it when something like that (perfect game) is going on,” Willis said. “But he’s playing baseball. They’re trying win the game. That’s what he was trying to do, get them back in the game. And the reality is, that’s what he did.”
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