Coming Up Short by Dan Fox
Back on August 3rd I wrote about Willy Taveras’ quest to unseat Brett Butler for the highest number of bunt hits in a season since 1959. Butler collected 40 bunt hits for the Braves in 1992, the same season that Kenny Lofton of the Indians was collecting 31. At that point Taveras had passed Lofton with 32 bunt hits in 45 attempts (a 71.1% success rate) and seeemed well on his way to surpassing Butler. But alas, a nagging quadriceps injury that had hampered him since early in the season allowed Taveras to play in just 13 games since then and has apparently ended his season.
As a result the Rockies centerfielder will fall three short of tying Butler as the following table showing the 2007 leaders in bunt hits attests:
Name Att H Pct Willy Taveras 52 37 0.712 Juan Pierre 45 17 0.378 Norris Hopper 23 15 0.652 Luis Castillo 18 13 0.722 Corey Patterson 24 12 0.500 Jose Reyes 23 11 0.478 Gerald Laird 20 10 0.500 Julio Lugo 14 9 0.643 Joey Gathright 20 9 0.450 Nook Logan 22 8 0.364 Rafael Furcal 18 8 0.444 Alfredo Amezaga 14 7 0.500 Coco Crisp 20 7 0.350 Jerry Owens 20 7 0.350 Ichiro Suzuki 9 7 0.778 Kenny Lofton 7 7 1.000 Carlos Gomez 11 6 0.545 Grady Sizemore 10 6 0.600 Nick Punto 12 6 0.500 Dave Roberts 14 6 0.429 Jason Tyner 9 6 0.667 Randy Winn 9 5 0.556 Mark Ellis 8 5 0.625 Melvin Mora 10 5 0.500 Reggie Willits 14 5 0.357 Omar Vizquel 7 5 0.714 Corey Hart 8 5 0.625
It was certainly entertaining watching Taveras wreak havoc on the bases and here’s hoping Rockies fans will be treated to an encore performance in 2008.
