A Bunt, into a Play at the Plate

With a runner on third, the batter squares to bunt, and successfully gets that bunt down. Maybe the runner breaks for home as the pitch is thrown. Maybe they wait to run until the bunt is down. Either way, they’re headed to the plate, and there's no force play involved. When the ball is fielded, the defense throws home. Will the ball get there first, or the runner? And if the ball gets there, can the catcher make the tag in time?

Since it’s not a force play, then the defense has to tag the runner before that runner touches home plate, retaining posession of the ball througout the process¹. Unlike the other bases, the runner doesn’t have to stop on home plate; they can slide past home, and as long as they’ve actually touched, they’re safe. They can double-back to touch home if they need to (and as long as they can avoid the tag). Similarly, if the runner doesn’t touch home and also the fielder misses the tag, both parties can Looney Tunes their way around until a final call can be made.

But— there are some additional considerations, because of course there are. Essentially, with the ball/runner/fielder all converging at the same place at the same time, MLB has implemented some additional rules designed to prevent nasty collisions². These rules have at least slightly reduced the number of wrecks at the plate, but I’d be lying if I said they were clear, and that lack of clarity has led to an awful lot of arguing (and calls being overturned on replay) in the ensuing years.

Both the runner and fielder have a responsibility to avoid unnecessary collisions. For the purposes of the rest of this section, we’ll say that the fielder is the catcher, though it doesn’t have to be. Now, a runner headed for home plate already has a fairly wide swath of territory they can use to travel to the plate; they don’t have to stay within the dirt base path, and instead many runners will take a curved path that takes them into foul territory³. And as long as they don’t suddenly juke towards the catcher as they near the plate, that’s all well and good. If they do deviate towards the catcher, they can be called out for interference. Similarly, if the runner does collide with the fielder, and the umpire judges that the runner had a path to slide without said collision, the runner can be called out.

The fielder, meanwhile, is not allowed to completely block the path to the plate unless they have possession of the ball, or if they’re trying to catch the ball as it’s thrown in. So, as they’re waiting for a throw, they should, in theory, give the runner a lane to use to get to the plate. It doesn’t necessarily be a generous lane, mind you, but it does need to exist, and it’s up to the runner how creatively they’re going to use it. Sometimes, it can be pretty darn creative. If the umpire judges that the catcher is blocking the plate illegally, then they can call the runner safe. However, if the catcher isn’t actively hindering the runner, or if the umpire judges that the runner would have been out even if the catcher had not blocked the plate, they can still call the runner out.

If interference is called on either the runner or the catcher, then the out/run is counted, and the ball immediately becomes dead. Any other runners are sent back to the last base they touched. And unless the call was the most obvious call in the history of umpiring, the manager whose team just got shafted is almost certainly going to come out to argue— or to call for a replay.

If there isn’t any drama, however, the ball will stay live (unless the play at the plate resulted in the third out of the inning), and the catcher can potentially attempt to throw out other baserunners who might be trying to take an extra base. The batter whose bunt kicked everything off is credited with a fielder’s choice, not a base hit, even though they made it to first base safely.