Need a ruling

Runner on 1b. Runner attempts to steal 2b. RH Batter bumps the catcher as he throws to 2b. The ball sails 20' to the right of 2b. Obvious body contact between Batter and Catcher. What's the ruling? Is there any possibility of interference on the batter? Or always "tough luck" for the catcher?

Questions:
1)Does the batter have to swing and pretend to loose his balance to not get interference called?
2)What if the batter steps on home plate in attempt to block the catcher?
3)Does the catcher have to hit the batter with the ball (very difficult with 2 righties)?
4) what if the catcher falls off balance? Or flops like a FIFA player? Or a unc point guard? (just kidding)

 

If "batter bumps catcher" then interference.
seems straight forward from your description.
In the end, up to plate ump - totally up to his call/interpretation.

 

I'm pretty sure... Up to ump if contact affected the play. There is often some contact, not usually called. This is a tough judgment call.

Questions:
1)Does the batter have to swing and pretend to loose his balance to not get interference called?
NO. What if a catcher went into the runner and created the contact? Obviously that isn't interference.

2)What if the batter steps on home plate in attempt to block the catcher?
If ump spots this, it's a clear call - interference, dead ball, batter is out, runner returns to 1B.

3)Does the catcher have to hit the batter with the ball (very difficult with 2 righties)?
NO. And if batter is hit that still isn't necessarily interference. Otherwise the discerning coach would tell the catcher to screw one in the batter's ear-hole on every stolen base attempt.

4) what if the catcher falls off balance? Or flops like a FIFA player? Or a unc point guard? (just kidding)
Again, it's judgment. This is not as easy as interference in the basepath, because there is no way for a batter to always clear the way. And as a judgment call, no appeal is allowed. Not official appeal, anyway, just an appeal for better judgment. Ump will almost never change his mind over this - you can ask him to ask his field ump for help, but they won't usually crack the door of revisiting judgment calls.

 

Never seen it called...ever

Thanks. (in my best forrest gump voice) "Umps and judgement calls...are tough."

It's clearly a grey area (or a finer point of the game) that's been taught. Last night, Mclatchie (c for providence) hip and shoulder-checked the Myers Park catcher into the LHP batters box. And I believe to one knee. Then he looked over to his bench and coach. As if to say "did I you see that?".

Since I've never seen it called. I thought I'd ask "what does it takes to get that call?". You'd almost have to warn the ump before, so he looks for it. Last night one clearly missed it.

 

Game management 101

If you play providence you better know the game and be able to "grind it out". At and NTIS USA baseball presentation "Lunch" Mackenzie (coach) said "baseball is a grind" that if you play Cuba, they slow the pace way down. Or in other countries they yell the whole game (sound like providence bench? Yes) You have to be able to handle it and not loose focus. Thats what Hignight did last night.

Providences starting pitcher didn't make it through the 2nd inning, the shortstop made errors... again, and they didn't execute a squeeze well ( bunt has to get down or make contact on a suicide).

FB command(hit batters and walks), shortstop errors, and not getting the bunt down are 3 corrections Providence needs to make.

But that said, they slowed it down to a snails pace and didn't loose focus(except for getting out at 2b thinking they earned a walk (it was 3-1), and their bench NEVER got down. Yelling "this is our house" loosing by 2 in the 6th at myers park. Have to love youthful exuberance.

Fun to watch. Got to see 6 pitchers and 12 mound visits ? Started to hear the rooster warm up for sunrise as I got home.

 

Like previously stated, its a judgement call up to the plate ump and its just rarely ever called. One of those plays that a fan just cannot predict or make.

I will say, that I "have" seen it called though on several occasions, but I've also seen a "ton" that I thought were obvious that were not called. And it never fails that when a rare call like this is made, the ump will get an argument from the coach.

 

To clarify it is actually the Duke defenders that were so good at flopping. Now that they have the circle under the basket, Duke was not nearly as good defensively this year.

Umpires definitely need to make this call more often as guys with great swings and balance suddenly start flopping around like fish out of water on this play.

 

Look, I keep it relatively nice here.
But if you get on the Blue Devils, you will see a side that you will not like...

 

I was thinking that the perspective is interesting on the evaluation of the Panthers.

Yes the SS made an error on a routine ball. Yes they bunt through a squeeze play. And yes the starter (14-0 coming into the game) did not have his best stuff and got belted around. That’s baseball. You see the same thing at the highest level of the game and that is one of the reasons why the best teams only win 2/3 of their games.

Looking at the other side of the coin, what did the Panthers do to win on a night they were not at their best?

They executed a cut off play getting them an out and keeping them out of a huge inning in the first, allowing just two runs. The cut off was the same routine play that their opponents twice did not make in Providence’s big inning (6th) where they needlessly missed the cut off, throwing through to the plate thus allowing the batter/runner to move up a base on the throw putting an additional runner in scoring position each time and not keeping the DP in order. Both those runners scored.

An inning later the Panthers pick off a runner at second, minimizing the damage in the inning to a single run.

In the sixth, trailing by two and after only having one hit in the first five innings, their leadoff hitter has a 10 pitch AB before he draws a walk. They then collect another walk and three hits including a two out, two run scoring base hit, when the pressure was on. that put them up.

The seventh starts with another 10 pitch AB/walk. This time the bunt is perfect and a following base hit produces the insurance run.

The four relievers pitched 5.2 innings and allowed just one Baltimore chop base hit.

Baseball is a game of failures. Bottom line is the while they were not at their best and could have been beaten yesterday, they kept making plays. It was not an accident that in the end they had enough to pull it out, and it was not just superior talent that produced the win.

Come playoff time you hope to be at your best but realistically that does not always happen. On those nights you hope you can make enough plays to pull it out and not be on the side where the lesser team wins one of their 1/3.

 

True

Providence did play many parts of the game well. By focusing on a few areas to improve, I did not mean to take away from their other well executed plays.