Tim Anderson, with speed to burn, was on third base. Yolmer Sanchez, who had eighth sacrifice bunts at the time, was the batter. And that meant there could be action.
Cory Provus and Dan Gladden brought up the possibility in the Twins radio booth. Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson speculated about the same thing during the White Sox radio broadcast.
On the field, pitching coach Wes Johnson went to the mound to speak to righthander Kyle Gibson - and also set up the defense.
"So Wes came out, and that's the first thing he talked about when he came out," Gibson said. "He said, 'They safety squeeze here quite a bit with these two guys.' "
The play came in the seventh inning of the Twins' 6-4 loss to the White Sox on Monday night at Target Field.
And the Twins were ready for the play - until there were two strikes on Sanchez. Sanchez fouled off four pitches. Then, on the fifth, he squared around to bunt. And, although the pitch was shoulder high, Sanchez got the bunt down as Anderson raced in from third.
"Once I got to two strikes, I really wasn't thinking about it a whole lot," Gibson said. "Even Miggy [Miguel Sano] kind of moved away from the line a little bit, I think. Honestly, I kind of felt like -- I don't know that I could have thrown the pitch much better. A little bit higher, and it could go over Castro's head. The ball's about neck-high, and I've got to go back and look at how many guys have actually gotten the ball down in that situation with two strikes and been successful."
The run gave the White Sox a 5-2 lead at the time. It also gave Sanchez nine sacrifice bunts on the season, the most by a position player in baseball. It's a great play for a team trying to tack on extra runs. It's a great play by Sanchez, who had to handle a tough pitch.
"It was well-executed," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "If it is gonna play out like that, we will probably give up a run on it every time because there's not a lot we are going to do about it. They put it on, they ran it and they ran it well."
Baldelli said he had never seen a squeeze play with two strikes in pro ball before. Gibson said he asked catcher Mitch Garver if he and ever seen one, and he said he didn't. It was an interesting play on a night in which the Twins weren't at their best.
Front row seat
That bunt play wasn't the only squirrel-ly thing to happen on Monday.
The Twins were trying to add on to a 1-0 lead in the first inning when attention turned to a squirrel appeared on the field while Nelson Cruz batted with a 1-2 count. The squirrel ran behind Cruz and home plate umpire Gabe Morales before heading for the Twins dugout. A few players jumped out of the way as the squirrel entered the dugout from under the railing. Johnson was huddling with Gibson at the time and nearly hopped out of his seat on the bench as it scurried around. Sano left the dugout entirely and walked along the railing until the squirrel left.
Play resumed, and Cruz hit the next pitch for an RBI single. But the Twins lost the game. So if they go on a losing streak will the appearance of the squirrel be linked to the demise of the 2019 Minnesota Twins?
