"With the tying run at second base and none out in the ninth inning, he was the calm in a screaming madhouse. As the Dodgers infielders gathered at the mound and Alex Vesia entered from the bullpen, Betts thought back to a play he had participated in once, in an August game against the Angels. Miguel Rojas had taught him the so-called "wheel play.""
""All he had to do was tell me once," Betts said. "To me, that was like a do-or-die situation. Them tying the game up turns all the momentum there. If we can find a way to stop it, that would be great. I just made a decision and rolled with it.""
"On the mound, amid the bedlam, Betts put on the wheel play. It's a bunt coverage: with a runner on second base, the third baseman and first baseman charge home, with the idea that one would field the bunt and throw out the runner at third. In any previous decade, the Dodgers would have practiced this play in spring training, repeatedly."
Mookie Betts used memory and execution to stop a ninth-inning bunt with the tying run at second and none out, pushing the Dodgers within one win of the National League Championship Series. Betts recalled a play he had been taught by Miguel Rojas — the so-called wheel play — and implemented it as Alex Vesia entered from the bullpen. The wheel play is a bunt coverage where the third and first basemen charge home to field a bunt and throw out the runner at third. The Dodgers rarely practice the wheel play now because pitchers do not hit. Betts made a quick, decisive call under pressure that prevented a momentum-shifting run.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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