Last night’s Mets/Phillies game lasted 10 innings (Phillies won 6-3).

10 innings = 30 outs on offense for each team. The game can’t end before you run out of these outs…these outs are valuable baseball commodities.

So can someone please explain why Jerry Manuel called for three (3!) sacrifice bunts? None of these occurred in the 8th/9th innings. Two of these occurred after lead-off doubles, so the runner was already in scoring position with no outs. The other occurred with a man on 1st and one out. All occurred with the struggling, soft-throwing Jamie Moyer on the mound (current ERA 6.11, current WHIP 1.49).

Had all three of these bunts worked as planned, the Mets would have conceded a full inning’s worth of outs. While playing against the team that has scored more runs than any other in the major leagues this season. And having Tim Redding as their starting pitcher (he actually threw a good game last night).

Someone please explain. PLEASE. I must be missing something.