What are the rules about a batter taking a swat at an intentional walk pitch? Do both feet need to be in the batters box or just one? Has anyone ever done this in a real game?
That’s why they throw them very wide of the plate. If the batter steps across the plate to try to hit one, he’s out. Both feet have to be within the batter’s box, and the player may occupy only one batter’s box at a time.
In one of the games in the Cardinals-Astros pennant series, IIRC, a player laid down a nice bunt from a pitch on the far side of the plate. The commentator noted, for the replay, that the batter had been careful not to step on the plate. Apparently that would have ruled him out.
The style of walks where the catcher stands up and steps over is relatively new. Previous to (mumble) the 1970’s, the pitcher would throw 4 pitches outside the strike zone, and a daring batter could still try for a hit. Nowadays, they call that an “intentional unintentional” walk.
You might wonder why they bother even pitching in a standup walk. The reason is that even an intentional-walk pitch can go astray, allowing runners to advance.
Okay, so what if the batter stays with both feet in the batter’s box and still swings? Just stands there and swings at a ball going by ten feet away from him, obviously thrown so that he couldn’t possibly hit it, he still swings at it.
Is it a strike?
Yes, and there could be a perfectly valid reason for swinging at it. If the batter has two strikes, and no runner is on first (and if there are two outs, it doesn’t matter if first is occupied), the pitch may be so wild that the catcher has little or no chance of catching, or even blocking, it. In such a case, the batter is entitled to try to run to first, and must be put out (by a throw from catcher to first baseman, or tag if the catcher picks up the ball and runs down the batter) to be retired. Also, any runners who were on base are entitled to advance, while also subject to being put out by any means permissible.
So why does the “if first is unoccupied” qualifier come into play? If it didn’t, and the batter were a slow runner, the catcher could elect to deliberately drop a third strike and throw down to second to retire a comparatively fast runner and thus remove some speed from the basepaths. See this discussion of the infield fly rule for a similar situation.
Cool, thanks. That’s the piece of info I was missing. It seems like you could still reach the ball if you crossed the plate but stayed inside the batter’s box.
Uh no. Intentional walks where the catcher stands up and steps out of the catcher’s box for a very wide pitch go at least as far back as the 1950s and I’d gess further back, but I have no personal knowledge before I started watching baseball.
And as an added note, I’ll add that not only must the batter remain in the batter’s box, but the catcher must remain in the catcher’s box until the pitch is delivered. Otherwise a balk will be called.
Back in the 1960s, Henry Aaron was so enraged by a St. Louis Cardinals pitcher throwing junk that he stepped across the plate while swinging and hit a home run. He was called out for stepping out of the batter’s box. The announcers enjoyed the ensuing argument tremendously.
Intentional walks were not recorded separately until the 1950s, but they have been a part of baseball for a long time.
I recall a Dodgers-Phillies game in the late 1970s when Tug McGraw was trying to intentionally walk Joe Ferguson. But he threw a pitch too close to the plate and Ferguson reached out and hit it for a single.
McGraw was rather ticked at this as it is generally considered to be a violation of one of baseball’s many “unwritten” rules. So McGraw went and got street justice by hitting the next batter, Bill Russell, with a pitch. Russell then charged the mound and a fight ensued. It was one of the few times I ever saw Bill Russell get angry at anybody.
In the 1972 World Series, Oakland catcher Gene Tenace got up out of his crouch and signalled to his pitcher (I believe it was Rollie Fingers) that he was going to intentionally walk Johnny Bench (who had two strikes on him). So Bench relaxed, but Tenace went back in to his crouch and the pitcher delivered a strike to retire Bench.
And the reason for the four wide pitches and that last rule about the catcher is that the batter does have the option of attempting to get a hit out of it, at the cost of converting an obvious ball into a strike or ground or fly out if he fails to do so. But he must be given the chance – the pitcher cannot merely call out to the umpire “intentional walk” and the umpire then say to the batter “take your base” – he must be delivered four pitches, which he can “take” for balls to receive his base on balls, or swing at, accepting the consequences of whatever his doing so results in.
This is the main part of an intentional walk that gets me. The catcher almost always jumps to the side while the pitcher still has the ball and no one ever calls it. And since by far most IW situations involve a man on base, this makes a difference.