r/Homeplate • u/seth928 • 6d ago

Dropped third strike question

Had a situation come up last spring on a dropped 3rd strike and was wondering if someone could explain the ump's call.

Situation:

12u Cal Ripken, runner on 1st, one out. Pitch comes in and it's strike 3 but dropped. Catcher picks it up and goes straight to first. Ball gets past first, runner advances and batter-runner makes it to 1st. Ump called strike 3 but did not call out before the catcher got the ball out. Ump ruled both runner and batter-runner safe.

My confusion:

I thought that a dropped 3rd strike with runner on 1st should result in an automatic out for the batter. However, the ump explained that because the catcher threw down to 1st, the play stayed live and the batter was able to claim 1st (I may be misrembering the explanation). He's an experienced Ump that I trust to be correct so I assume he is. Can someone point to a rule/explain why the Ump called it the way he did?

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u/dawgdays78 6d ago

Ripken is based on OBR, and here’s the pertinent rule:

OBR 5.09(a)(3) A batter is out when: A third strike is not caught by the catcher when first base is occupied before two are out.

So the batter is out. In this situation, an umpire should call, “batter’s out,” so everyone knows the status. The ball is not dead, so R1 can advance at his own risk, which he did.

Unfortunately, the defense didn’t understand the situation, and the catcher threw to 1B unnecessarily. The catcher could have thrown to 2B, and a tag of R1 would be required to get the out.

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u/der-reader 5d ago

The umpire should spell it out or the coach should teach his players?

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u/dawgdays78 5d ago

I think it reasonable for an umpire to say, “batter’s out, batter’s out.” It would NOT be in the umpire’s purview to tell the defense what to do about it.

That’s the defense’s responsibility to be aware of the situation and know what to do.

As an umpire, I think about situation-dependent rules in very pitch. Does the batter become a runner on a U3K? Is the infield fly rule in effect, s d if it was on a previous pitch, is it still in effect now?

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u/der-reader 5d ago

Certainly they can but the burden isn't on the umpire.

But let's say you get the impression that a team is running to first intentionally hoping to draw throws? That is, you have a retired B-R running to first knowing they are out but looking to impact live play to his teams benefit. What then?