MILWAUKEE – Pat Murphy had MLB Network on the TV in his office on Thursday morning at American Family Field, like it always is, and saw a segment about the Cardinals’ embrace of small ball. If he’d looked on his iPad, he might have seen some of the recent stories about the Rays bunting other teams to death.
Murphy chuckles. He likes to believe that his Brewers were on the front end of baseball’s trend back to basics.
It’s how they scored an old-school, 2-1 win over the Blue Jays in the series finale, with a breakout performance from rookie starter Brandon Sproat and a slew of small ball, featured by three consecutive bunts in the Brewers’ go-ahead seventh inning.
No, you have not transported back to 1987. The bunt is back in Major League Baseball -- at least according to Murphy.
Tied at 1-1 since the fourth inning, Garrett Mitchell’s pinch-hit walk leading off the bottom of the seventh put the Brewers in business. He advanced on Greg Jones’ successful sacrifice bunt in Jones’ Brewers debut. Then David Hamilton greeted lefty reliever Joe Mantiply by bunting for a single.
Joey Ortiz followed by giving the Brewers the lead, deadening a 1-1 changeup right in front of home plate. Mitchell scored the go-ahead run.
Milwaukee has been playing this brand of baseball for a couple of years based on the club's speedy, aggressive personnel, but right now it's a matter of necessity. The Brewers are playing without three of the first four hitters in their projected starting lineup, with Christian Yelich sidelined at least a month by a groin injury, while Jackson Chourio and Andrew Vaughn are recovering from fractured hands.
And the Brewers aren’t alone. The Blue Jays scored Thursday’s lone run with Tyler Heineman’s squeeze bunt in the third inning. It was the only mark against Sproat, who needed only 75 pitches to set a career high with 6 2/3 innings pitched, allowing one run on four hits with one walk and six strikeouts.