Sometimes these announcers are so clueless...

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

When Eckstein fouled the squeeze bunt attempt and he nipped his fingers, McCarver kept blabbering on about Eckstein getting first base if the ball hadn't also hit the bat (which it had). Whether the ball hit the bat or not was immaterial. If a batter is hit by a pitch while attempting to hit the ball, then he is not entitled to a base. The ball could have hit Eckstein square in the chest and he would not have been entitled to first base as long as he made an attempt to put the ball in play with either a swing or bunt.

[Guest holychicken]

I was actually wondering about that. . . I kept saying to my gf "wtf are they talking about? I know that if you swing at a pitch and it hits you, it is a strike and if you try to bunt a ball it counts as a swing. . .I didn't know there was some other rule that covers this"

Thanks for clearing it up.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I think the ball hitting the bat is relevant.

If the batter is hit by a strike, he doesn't get first. That pitch perhaps isn't a strike if it doesn't hit the bat. His attempt at bunting was abandoned and he was pulling the bathead back in a defensive posture.

[Guest holychicken]

"His attempt at bunting was abandoned and he was pulling the bathead back in a defensive posture."

To me it looked like he was punching at the ball with the bat. But certainly, if he had been pulling the bat back, I understand that it would be a hit batsman.

[Frayed Knot]

]His attempt at bunting was abandoned and he was pulling the bathead back in a defensive posture.

I don't think he was.
In my view he was still attempting to bunt, meaning that a bat hit, hand hit, or hand/bat hit were all foul balls.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, yeah, I'll amend.

If it can be judged that his attempt at bunting was abandoned and he was pulling the bathead back in a defensive posture, the ball hitting the bat is relevant.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Edgy is, of course, correct in his interpretation of the rule. I guess I should have said that whether or not the ball had hit the bat was immaterial in this instance since Eckstein was, in my opinion, attempting to put the ball in play.

As an aside, I personally love the "throw the ball at the batter" on squeeze plays. It was what all the pitchers on my high school and college teams were instructed to do should a player square around too early. It makes executing the play much more difficult for the hitter. Mota's actions likely saved a run.