And I promise a point-by-point rebuttal when my classes end in a couple of hours.

In the meantime... congratulations on being linked to Deadspin. Wooo!

by putting on the sac, I think he was pretty much showing his confidence in the bullpen to protect a 1 run lead for 2 Innings, which obviously we can't even do for one inning.

I agree with you, Dex, though not quite for the scientific reasons you trotted out that I took political science classes in college to avoid...

Without delving into the bowels of Retrosheet (linked for the people who don't know that incredible site), I can say with confidence that the Padres have a problem with advancing runners around the bases when that player starts on first as opposed to second or third. While we do score a majority of our runs on station-to-station hitting, there's no doubt that we strand a significant number of runners compared to other teams *once* we've pushed at least one run across. Anecdotally, it certainly seems we have much fewer multi-run/non-HR innings (aka station-to-station runs) than other teams, which can be attributed to a number of things (lack of 1st > 3rd speed, for example).

Applying those lines of logic to Sunday's 7th inning, it begs to reason that we should not have burned an out in getting a runner over to second, and instead should have taken our chances (not to say it was a long shot, by any means) with three of the next four hitters following Hairston being contact-type hitters.

If the sac bunt is your call, okay, but following that it's assumed you'll be bringing up a guy to the plate who's adept at doing one of two things:
1) sending a ball to the right side via grounder or sac fly, and rolling the dice with a two-out, runner on third situation
or
2) smacking a single into the outfield

Unfortunately, Tony Clark doesn't really possess those abilities when batting from the right side -- which isn't to say he does when batting from the left -- so not only do you burn an out on the bunt, but you're also banking on rather high odds that Clark sends one into a gap, or parks one altogether. Against the LA middle relief corps, that's much easier said than done. Alas, he was walked, as the Dodgers had no real reason to pitch to him. Force goes back on, and the next two hitters are singles-type hitters who increase the odds of GIDP. If the Dodgers did try to challenge him, though, Buddy's logic doesn't follow.

It's then left to Giles and Iguchi, theoretically decent guys to have at the plate. Their lack of execution is more of a macro-level problem than we're analyzing here, though allowing Bard to swing away definitely improves their chances of getting a sac fly out of Clark/Giles/Iguchi...for a team that struggles with scoring runs, it seems illogical to burn an out when it only gets a runner to second.

Once again I'll recommend "The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball" by Tom M. Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin. It covers the bunt strategy in complete detail. Basically, bunting with Bard in that scenario is bad. Typically bunting is only useful if there is a reasonable chance you may end up with a hit or the batter is very weak. Bard is neither a weak hitter or has a decent chance of beating out the bunt. In fact one would argue he is slow enough that a double play is even more likely on a bunt than a base hit.

Another important element to bunting is that is needs to be a surprise. If the defense is expecting a bunt then it is almost never a good idea to bunt. I believe Bard showed bunt once before bunting most likely making the defense expect a bunt. If the defense is now expecting a bunt not only is it a guaranteed out and a chance of a double play, but hitting away has a better chance of succeeding.

Also, I'm still waiting for Meredith or Bell to come in the seventh inning of Friday's game with the bases loaded, the scored tied and Thatcher struggling.

My line of thinking follows that by sacrifice bunting and playing for one run, you are trusting one hitter to come through with a base hit and you are trusting your bullpen with a one-run lead. I don't think the 7th inning is too early for this line of strategy- as we should be able to place faith in an 8th-inning setup reliever and a 9th-inning closer (although our bullpen has been shaky of late, I still have confidence that if Buddy manages the bully the right way, we should have no problems protecting leads).

Also, this would manufacture a run with (mostly) the bottom of our order and still give our 3-4-5-6 guys a chance to swing away and add more runs in the bottom of the 8th. I believe that playing for one run with the sacrifice in the 7th and giving our middle-of-the-order hitters another shot at adding more in the next inning is a solid strategy.

As Dex pointed out, Bard does have a tendency to put the ball on the ground. A hit-and-run with a ground ball hitter will more than likely end up accomplishing exactly the same thing as a sacrifice bunt- a runner standing on second with a putout at first. I agree with either a hit-and-run or a sacrifice bunt in this situation. However, the hit-and-run has its downsides as well as its upsides- depending on placement, a well-struck line drive could end up as a base hit or it could end up getting the runner doubled off first if the line drive is playable by the infield. The sacrifice bunt, in my opinion, is a safer bet to move successfully move the runner up.

Therefore, I place blame on Giles-Iguchi for not coming through and driving in a run or even getting on base. Bard did his job by laying down a successful sacrifice. Clark did his job by getting on base (although, as CA Penal pointed out, the Dodgers may have unintentionally intentionally walked Clark to reset the chance for a GIDP or a forceout. Regardless of how he got on base, though, that gives the top of our lineup a shot at driving in a run). I have no problem rolling the dice with the 1-2 hitters in our lineup to get one base hit; for that strategy to pay off, though, they need to work the count a little bit and find a pitch to hit hard, and not swing at something early in the count that they are going to pop up, as both Giles and Iguchi did.

and you will need numbers to shut me up on this one.

Because Bard is by nature a ground-ball-influenced hitter, I would say that there is better than a "small" chance that he will GIDP if the runner is not in motion.

Secondly, if the bunter is halfway competent AND the runner does his job and gets a good read on the bunt and a good jump off of first, I would bet a lot of money that the probability of a bunt being turned into for a double play ball is smaller than the probability of a GIDP. The speed of the bunter is irrelevant if the runner on first gets a good jump and the defense realizes that they have no play at second.

Totally off-topic, but I love the new SBNation software. The z-shortcut, auto-refresh, and ability to hype good comments is great. What is the result of recommending comments, by the way? Do they change color given enough votes? Do those commenters get priority in other threads?

and nobody may read this, but I pretty much agree with JBRO on this one. In general, yes, sac bunting is not a very good strategy over the long run. I think The Book is being taken too much as gospel here without regards to the particular situation. This wasn't the first inning in Philly. It was a neutral park, against a great pitching staff, in the seventh inning. The value of a single run is much higher in that situation than the early innings in a high scoring ballpark. Let's look at what would be needed to score a run in this situation. Last season, Dodger's Stadium suppressed doubles (.908), and triples (.583...ouch), while inflating singles (1.026) and Homeruns (1.052). With a man on first, it is most likely going to take two hits to score the run, or a hit with the runner on first going to third, and a sac fly. Tough odds. So we lay down a successful sacrifice. You now have a runner on second with one out, who has a good chance of scoring on a hit. What is more likely to happen, two singles or one single (I know it isn't that simple)? I don't know, but getting one single before getting two outs seems like it would be more likely than getting two singles before three outs. I could be wrong, but one quick point here, a man on second with one out scores more often than a man on first with one out. Only a small increased chance, but an increased chance nonetheless. Giving up an out to move the guy over doesn't decrease his chance of scoring, it decreases the teams chance of scoring multiple runs. That said, with Bard up, I don't think a hit and run would have been a bad option. Bard makes contact at a ridiculous rate. Bard also grounded into 16 doubleplays last year. Hmmmm....

Now, while the book says that sac bunting is usually counterproductive, doesn't it also say that intentionally walking a guy to set up the double play is also generally counter-productive? So if we lay down the sac bunt, we either have man on 2nd with one out, or , with the intentional walk to set up the double play, a man on 1st and 2nd with one out. Both situations are an improvement over no outs, runner on first. Again, not much of an improvement, but still an improvement.

I know one run doesn't guarantee a win, but I don't see how it could decrease your chances of winning. Basically Black made a decision to try and get the one run, at the expense of a lowered chance of scoring multiple runs. Was it the best decision? I am honestly not sure, but I would take my chances with the top of my order with one out and men on first and second. Was it a bad decision? I don't think so at all.