Is bunting during a no-hitter ever acceptable?

[Silver&Black]

Today during Justin Verlander's no hit attempt, Erick Aybar tried to bunt his way on during the 8th inning with his team trailing 3-0.

Is this a :nope or a :toast??

http://thebiglead.com/index.php/2011/07/31/erick-aybar-tried-to-bunt-during-justin-verlanders-no-hit-attempt-breaking-an-unwritten-rule/

[JamStone]

The bunt was fine. And in light of what happened the half inning before with a batter posing and bat flipping intentionally and then the pitcher throwing at the next batter's head, all baseball etiquette went out the window anyway. But even regardless of that, the game was close enough to make the bunt more than reasonable. It was fine.

Verlander's reaction is understandable. When you're the guy throwing the no-hitter, of course you'd hate to lose it on a bunt, whether it's bush league or acceptable. But even he admitted he understood the other side of the argument.

[Silver&Black]

The bunt was fine. And in light of what happened the half inning before with a batter posing and bat flipping intentionally and then the pitcher throwing at the next batter's head, all baseball etiquette went out the window anyway. But even regardless of that, the game was close enough to make the bunt more than reasonable. It was fine.

Verlander's reaction is understandable. When you're the guy throwing the no-hitter, of course you'd hate to lose it on a bunt, whether it's bush league or acceptable. But even he admitted he understood the other side of the argument.

I'll be honest I didn't see that part. That's an intresting take on things though. Styling and profiling homeruns is definately not cool. I give up...Baseball is the only sport I can think of with "unwritten rules".

[FromWayDowntown]

I think it depends almost entirely on the circumstances. If you're a guy like Erick Aybar, who collects infield hits and bunt hits fairly regularly, and the game is close enough that you might be able to start a rally with a bunt hit, I think it's absolutely fair game, particularly when the game is meaningful to your team in a pennant race. The Tigers would be foolish to not defend (to some degree at least) against a bunt and the Angels shouldn't be artificially limited in the ways that they create offense just because Verlander has stymied them all day.

By contrast, the last big hub-bub about this came when Ben Davis, a journeyman catcher who may have only had one bunt hit in his career but used it to break up Curt Schilling's run at a perfect game in May 2001. Given the circumstances -- an early season game (the Padres were a game behind the Diamondbacks at the time, but it still wasn't even June), a catcher who didn't frequently try to bunt for hits, a team that didn't play a lot of small ball, in the midst of a perfect game -- I still think that was a pretty ridiculous play by Davis.

[ChuckD]

I'll be honest I didn't see that part. That's an intresting take on things though. Styling and profiling homeruns is definately not cool. I give up...Baseball is the only sport I can think of with "unwritten rules".

Two sides to that story, too. Ordonez hit a long ball that he wasn't sure was fair/foul, so he watched it, and it did go out of the park. Bitch-boy was giving him shit about it, and then didn't even let it go during his NEXT at bat. I think it was more a case of Guillen saying to him "Hey, motherfucker, THIS is showing up a pitcher" to get him to STFU about Ordonez.