Those of you who watched the Atlanta Braves game Sunday night saw something that doesn’t happen every day.
Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim, Calif., began in an unusual fashion when Atlanta leadoff hitter Nate McLouth checked his swing on a low pitch in the dirt and strained a muscle in his left side.
The injury to the center fielder’s oblique muscle was so bad that another player (pinch hitter Diory Hernandez) had to be called in to finish McLouth’s at-bat.
Hernandez, who went in to play third base in the bottom of the first, inherited McLouth’s hit count (1-2) and ended up grounding out.
Of course, this situation got me to wondering about something. Hernandez entered the game and inherited two strikes and a ball from McLouth. Instead of grounding out, what if Hernandez had struck out. Would it have counted against him or McLouth in the official stats.
Interestingly, according to Major League Baseball rules, the strike out would have counted against McLouth.
“When a batter leaves the game with two strikes against him, and the substitute batter completes a strikeout, the official scorer shall charge the strikeout and the time at bat to the first batter,” the rules say. “If the substitute batter completes the turn at bat in any other manner, including a base on balls, the official scorer shall score the action as having been that of the substitute batter.”
Another question that came to mind is what do you do if a player is ejected for arguing balls and strikes with the umpire before he completes his at bat? Would the batter be out or would another player be called in to finish his at bat as in the situation with an injured batter.
As far as I could tell, this subject isn’t addressed in the official rules, but I suspect that another batter would be called in to finish the at bat. If any of you out there know for sure, call me and let me know. I’d be interested to hear the answer.
While researching the scenarios above, I also ran across an obscure rule that I’d never seen in print, that is, Rule 8.01, which discusses “Legal Pitching Delivery.” The rule reads as follows.
“A pitcher must indicate visually to the umpire-in-chief, the batter and any runners the hand with which he intends to pitch, which may be done by wearing his glove on the other hand while touching the pitcher’s plate. The pitcher is not permitted to pitch with the other hand until the batter is retired, the batter becomes a runner, the inning ends, the batter is substituted for by a pinch-hitter or the pitcher incurs an injury.”
Now comes the part that I’d never seen in print.
“In the event a pitcher switches pitching hands during an at-bat because he has suffered an injury, the pitcher may not, for the remainder of the game, pitch with the hand from which he has switched. The pitcher shall not be given the opportunity to throw any preparatory pitches after switching pitching hands.
Any change of pitching hands must be indicated clearly to the umpire-in-chief.”
This is all very interesting because I suspect that this rule was put into black and white for a good reason, and I suspect that it goes back to the early days of the game. I presume that this would prevent a pitcher from faking an injury to his nondominant hand in such a way that it would give him a competitive advantage over an otherwise unsuspecting batter.
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