Bunt coverage has me scratching my head.

This is standard bunt coverage. With a runner on first the 2B has 1B , 3B has line , 1B has line , pitcher has in front , catcher has in front. When the hitter shows bunt the 2B has to sprint towards first. The 1B if the ball is not bunted up the line sprints back in case the 2B does not get there in time and communication is key.

Its standard bunt coverage. Its one reason your mif need to be athletic and have speed. In a sac situation your going to cheat a litte off of dbl play depth. If your players are attentive to the signs of an impending bunt by the hitter you can get a good jump as well. But Coach Curt this is the standard bunt coverage that has been around for years and is used at all levels of baseball in this situation. The more you practice it the better you will be executing it.

I agree with Coach May that this is pretty standard bunt coverage.

Several things you can factor in or think about are

1. If it's a fairly obvious bunt situation then cheat the 2B towards 1B

2. Have the pitcher step off quickly or make a quick move to first - reason is most hitters at the high school level will flinch like they are going to square. If they do that then you can position your corners closer and cheat the 2B closer.

3. You could possibly run a pick off play from this if you have a very aggressive / undisciplined runner at first. Have the catcher call a pitchout and throw behind the runner at 1B with 2B covering.

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3. You could possibly run a pick off play from this if you have a very aggressive / undisciplined runner at first. Have the catcher call a pitchout and throw behind the runner at 1B with 2B covering.

Was thinking this exact thing... works like a charm if the pitcher does his job and the catcher's got an arm

Depending on the game situation and the personnel in the ballgame, I sometimes keep my first baseman on the bag in this situation. With a right handed hitter, my second baseman has the bag on a steal attempt because short stop has to stay in the hole to protect against the slash. So first baseman has 1st, 2nd baseman has second, SS wheels over to cover 3rd. 3rd baseman has 3B line, Pitcer has 1B line, and C has bunt responsibilty too. You have three players fielding the bunt and all bases covered.

I hope I'm not offending anyone I'm not high school or college coach. Much like Coach Byrd, I coached my 1st baseman to only field the bunt if it was bunted hard, directly to him, otherwise we continued to hold the runner at first. The pitcher had the 1st base side on coverage. The only exception was a called pick, with a PITCH OUT, the 1st baseman really charged hard to encourage the runner at 1st to get-off, then the C picked behind him at 1st, with 2B covering 1st base.

We run the "typical" coverage at GED10's HS, sadly we don't execute it well.

GED10DaD

No way you can offend me. I love talking baseball. What I described is standard bunt #1 coverage where the primary out is 1B unless: The ball is bunted hard back to the pitcher - right out in front of the catcher - popped up and the runner has to hold and its not caught in the air.

There are many different things you can do to hold a runner closer or attempt to pick off. But in every coverage there are certain responsibilities that every player must know. Then there are situations within those coverages that cause the responsibilities to change. For instance as soon as the 1B sees the ball is not bunted up the line hard he gets back to first if he can. If you dont charge until you see the ball and where its going you will not be close enough to field it hard up the line.

In bunt #1 coverage ie - no one on or runner on first - you must bust to be in posistion before the baseball is actually bunted. You must bust when the hitter shows bunt. If everyone waits to break after the ball is put down no one will be where they need to be to make a play.

The athletic ability of your players , the speed of the bunter etc etc there are many factors in play. There must be a set of responsibilities that each player knows and understands in each bunt coverage that you try to execute. And then the players must understand in what situations they need to deviate. Communication is key , practice is key , experience is critical.

Anytime your in Bunt #1 the primary out is first base. Your goal is to get an out. The offensive teams goal is to move a runner to 2B and is willing to give up an out to do so. Just get an out. If your team can execute well enough to get the primary out your doing a good job. Problems arise when a team is trying to give you an out for a bag and you give up a bag and dont get an out. Then its time for Bunt #2 coverage. Stick with what works for you.

Thanks Coach May, yes sir, we are struggling with those game time decisions and "reads" you described, like busting tail back to 1st base or the 2B covering the bag in time for a feed or a throw.

But, we are young, it will get better with time and practice! GED10DaD

Edit: LOL - I just read Coach2709's #3 reply, same as mine. My bad!!!

The thing you have to remember with bunt coverage is that the offense wants to give the defense an out. Worse thing to happen is to not take it. As Coach May said communication, practice and experience are all huge factors in bunt coverages. There really isn't a wrong way to do it as long as everyone knows

1. What their job is
2. What the other guys job is
3. To get an out
4. Get the out and check the runner who has advanced

What I have found which helps is a couple of easy drills

1. Three / Two ball drill - get three pitchers on the mound and three catchers. Place three balls in the area between the plate and mound on the ground. At the same time each pitcher throws to their catcher.

**Looking out from the plate catcher perspective**

The pitcher / catcher on the right work with the firstbaseman on communication and recovery. You can place the ball anywhere in that area to force the pitcher, catcher or firstbaseman to make a play

The pitcher / catcher in the middle work on a force play at second or play at the plate with a scoop toss to the catcher

The pitcher / catcher on the left work with the thirdbaseman on force / tag at third getting the lead runner. This forces the catchers to make a call early to help the pitcher approach the ball with his body lined up towards third for the throw.

The two ball drill is two pitchers / catchers. Now you are working on the bunt defenses where you do want the corner holding the runner or staying for a force play. But the biggest benefit is it forces the pitchers to field their half of the field becuase they are the only ones fielding the bunts.

2. No ball bunts - pitcher on the mound, IF in their spots and catcher behind the plate (OF can go hit in a cage during this). Have the pitcher go through his motion - windup and set. Have a coach "toss" an imaginary ball out from behind the catcher. Now the fielders have to react according to which bunt defense you have on.

It's amazing how something as simple as putting a ball in a drill can mess things up. Take the ball out and now they can concentrate on what to do and communicate.

If the coach wants the catcher to make the play then he can "toss" the ball out and say something like short (or whatever) and the catcher knows it's his.

You can eventually move up to having the coach actually toss a ball out for a play to be made.

3. Speed bunting drill - basically like the drill before but have a pitcher throw a ball and have the OF lay down bunts. By doing this you can work on

A) getting good sac bunts down
B) bunt coverages
C) pickoffs
D) baserunning

Sometimes the best drills work when you take the ball out of the equation. At the start of the season I used to (and will do it again when I take another head coaching job) do our IF / OF routine without a ball. At first the players think it's dumb but once they see they can just concentrate on where to go and what to do they become very receptive to it.

I love talking baseball but bunt and bunt defenses just get me talking a little bit more. I hope you can something out what I talked about and tweek it so you can use it. Not being prepared on bunts will get you beat almost everytime and it's one of the easiest plays in baseball becuase the ball is only going about 20 feet or so.

Early in my career a learned a valuable lesson that I never forgot. Up 3-0 and cruising late in a state playoff game. Our opponent goes on to score 3 runs to tie the game in the 6th without one ball being hit out of the infield. Drag bunt. Swinging bunt. Sac bunt. Squeeze bunt with 2 strikes. Saftey squeeze. Before you know it we are tied. We end up losing in the 8th inning.

We worked on bunt defense we had a plan. But we did not put our team under game pressure in practice when working on bunt defense. Its very important to add runners , game situations , to the equation. Dont just teach them where to be and what to do , teach them how to make plays in game situations and add as much game pressure as you can to the practice situation.

We spend a ton of time on bunt 0 and use that as a time to work on our bunt D. Then we reverse it and do the same with bunt D vs bunt O. 1st and 3rds , Bunt D and O , Cut plays , Holding runners , Pick Plays , Baserunning. These are the things you can be very good at regardless of how well you can hit and pitch. They are the things that many times are the difference when teams are equally matched in ability.

Good drills coach we do alot of those same drills. We do bunt off live arm pitching alot.

What happens when you work hard at these things is your players gain confidence when confronted with these situations in a game. When you dont the pucker factor can get you more than your opponents ability to execute will.

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Originally posted by Coach May:
Early in my career a learned a valuable lesson that I never forgot. Up 3-0 and cruising late in a state playoff game. Our opponent goes on to score 3 runs to tie the game in the 6th without one ball being hit out of the infield. Drag bunt. Swinging bunt. Sac bunt. Squeeze bunt with 2 strikes. Saftey squeeze. Before you know it we are tied. We end up losing in the 8th inning.

We worked on bunt defense we had a plan. But we did not put our team under game pressure in practice when working on bunt defense. Its very important to add runners , game situations , to the equation. Dont just teach them where to be and what to do , teach them how to make plays in game situations and add as much game pressure as you can to the practice situation.

We spend a ton of time on bunt 0 and use that as a time to work on our bunt D. Then we reverse it and do the same with bunt D vs bunt O. 1st and 3rds , Bunt D and O , Cut plays , Holding runners , Pick Plays , Baserunning. These are the things you can be very good at regardless of how well you can hit and pitch. They are the things that many times are the difference when teams are equally matched in ability.

Good drills coach we do alot of those same drills. We do bunt off live arm pitching alot.

What happens when you work hard at these things is your players gain confidence when confronted with these situations in a game. When you dont the pucker factor can get you more than your opponents ability to execute will.

Coach May...the scenario you describe above underpins what a wise scout told me about 15 years ago. He said more high school games were won/lost within 60' of home plate than anywhere else.

I have 4 basic bunt coverages:

regular covg with runner on 1st - pitcher has the 1B side, 3B charges and covers his side

regular covg with runner on 2nd - pitcher has 3B side and 1B has his side.

In these 2 coverages, my coaching points are 1) the corner IF that stays home has to take a ball bunted hard at him past the pitcher and 2)that we are looking to get the out. We will make our mistakes being conservative. We better be sure that we have the lead runner if we go there.

If I want to be aggressive late in a game and get the lead runner, we put bunt coverages on where both corner IF's charge as the pitcher comes set. 2B has 1st, and SS has 2nd if there is a runner only at 1B or 3rd if a runner at 2nd.

In these 2 coverages, my coaching points are 1)pitcher has to let the corner IF's get about halfway to the plate and MUST pitchout if hitter doesn't show bunt (I'm not willing to get someone killed to cover a bunt!)and 2) we are looking to get the lead runner. We will make our mistakes here being aggressive, so the fielder should be approaching the bunt in a position to go to the lead base and only adjust if the catcher tells him to go 1.

We also have two pickoffs off of the last two. With a runner on 1st, we employ the pickoff mentioned above where we pitchout and throw to the 2B covering the bag at 1st. With a runner on 2nd, 2B breaks to 2nd and the pitcher executes a timing pick.

Pretty basic, it's just what we do!

Thanks for all the help coaches, We are staying with the #1 coverage for now. I still think we are asking a lot of the second baseman to turn a double play with a man on first and cover first base on a bunt at the same time. Just MHO,

Thanks Guys, Coach Curt

basic bunt coverages we have are 0, 3, 5.
3 is when there is a runner on 1st. 1st baseman stays at home.
5 is when there is a runner on 2nd. 3rd baseman stays at home.
0 is when we charge both 1st and 3rd baseman. in 7 years we've never run it in a game.
we havent had any problems just running 3 and 5. keep things easy. just get an out.
theres a coach in our area that has won over 900 games and several state championships. they dont do anything. they expect their pitcher to field all bunts. never seen it hurt them.
keep it simple. have the least people moving as possible.

Timely thread:

We played a game this week with man on 1st late in game not outs, 1 run game - clear bunt situation where the 2nd baseman charged all the way in to the infield, they kept 1B at bag. Pitch was out of zone with no bunt but it certainly looked different. Ran it only once. I kind of liked the look it gave the hitter.