Consider the situation. Runner on 2nd, one out, long fly caught by the CF who believes it is the 3rd out and starts jogging towards the dugout. Meanwhile, the runner tags to go to 3rd and, seeing what the CF is doing (or maybe the coach saw it) just kept on going and scored. Does the batter get credit for a sac-fly? Does he get an RBI? Is the CF charged with an error? Once upon a time baseball announcers kept us up-to-date on such minutae, but no longer.
This actually happened on Saturday in a game between Detroit and Toronto, although with a final score of 15-1, it hardly mattered. Even more bizarrely, the very same CF made a similar mistake the very next day. Runner of 1st, one out, runner starts to steal, long fly, runner continues around 2nd is nearly to 3rd when the ball is caught. The runner then had to retrace his steps to 1st and was a dead duck. Except the CF again forgot how many outs there were and didn’t make the throw to 1st. In that case, no score resulted.
Well, you can’t assume the cf would have thrown him out at third, so I’d think the sacrifice fly counts, then an error allowing the extra base. No RBI on the error, right?
To be clear, it is not a sac fly if the runner only advances to 3rd base. A runner has to score for the batter to be credited with a sac fly. In the case the OP mentions, I didn’t see the play, but a batter can definitely be credited with a sac fly if the runner scores from 2nd or even 1st base.
ETA: Sac bunt does not require the runner to score, only advance.
You can definitely be credited with a sacrifice fly for scoring a runner from second base, simply because the outfielder cannot return the ball in time. This has happened many times, typically in parks with deep center field or huge power alleys, on plays where an outfielder has to run deep into the alleys and dive to make the catch.
If however there is a mechanical misplay–throwing wildly or throwing the ball into the stands–than an error is charged and no sac fly. There was a case a few years ago where Milton Bradley caught a fly for the second out and, thinking it was the third, chucked it into the stands, allowing a runner to score automatically from second base. Error, no sac fly.
The case described in the OP is in between, where a runner takes an extra base not due to mechanical misplay but due to a brain-farting outfielder being slow in returning the ball. The usual practice is not to charge an error in such cases. In this case the scorer did in fact credit a sac fly, and no error.
I think the idea is that if you fly out with nobody on third, you’re trying to get a hit and not trying to sacrifice yourself for the advancement of runners, thus you get charged with an at bat and no sacrifice.
Mental errors typically don’t get scored as errors. In this case, it’s a bit unfair to the pitcher to get charged with an earned run but you don’t know if the next batter would have driven him in anyway.
Let’s keep in mind these issues are about stats, not the outcome of the game. I understand stats are a large part of the appeal of baseball, they make good filler for a 3 hour game that has 15 minutes of action. The rules are complex enough, patched together over the years like an open source protocol. Sometimes they won’t give due credit to a player for success or failure. Hopefully it’s all a wash in the end, today’s unfair error gets cancelled out by tomorrow’s going the other way. The cases where it matters over a career are rare, no-hitters are what come to mind like the one the other day where there was dispute over an error call. It’s still part of the game of baseball, it adds to the drama and the art, and it provides more of the unique qualities that distinguish the game.
I get your point about baseball action being 15 minutes (actually this articlesays 18 minutes), but I take a bit of exception to that. The amount of time that the ball is “live” is far greater than that, as opposed to football where the action is a whopping 11 minutes of game time and in between the ball is not live, either being retrieved, being spotted, or waiting to be snapped.
All that said, I think the play described in the OP probably should have been ruled an error. The Milton Bradley case mentioned above is pretty much the same thing. Bradley didn’t make a physical fielding error by tossing the ball into the stands. It was purely a mental error.
[QUOTE=Hari Seldon;18649538 Does the batter get credit for a sac-fly? Does he get an RBI? Is the CF charged with an error? Once upon a time baseball announcers kept us up-to-date on such minutae, but no longer.
.[/QUOTE]
Which announcers are you watching? Grieve and Busby always give the ruling.
It was hyperbole. There is definitely a lot more going on in baseball than football. There’s no swing at most pitches, but the pitches are still action, players are leading off bases, fielders are positioning themselves. It’s not the most exciting action, but at least things are happening.
It was the Toronto announcers, Buck Martinez and Pat Tabler (both former catchers). It goes beyond the announcers. If you are at the ball park it can be hard to tell (until the run a hit board is updated) if it was a hit or an error and, if in doubt, you will never find who the error was against. I always keep score (something my father taught me the first time I went to a ball game in–if you can believe it–1946). It fills those empty minutes and keeps your attention on the game.
So one poster thinks it is a sac-fly and another that it ought to be an error. So I still don’t know. Incidentally, baseball has been back and forth on the sac-fly for all its history. Certainly, when I was growing up and for a couple decades later, there was no such thing. I mean runners tagged and scored, but for the batter it was just scored an out. But earlier in baseball, there had been such a rule, and then eventually they re-adopted it.
Pat Tabler played many positions but never catcher.
It may depend on the ballpark, but at Rogers Centre they make a point of clearly stating on one of the scoreboards what the official scoring decision is.
No, I don’t think that’s what anyone said. They said it depends.
If the runner from second advances to third as a result of the fly ball but scores as the result of an error, it’s not a sacrifice fly.
If the runner from second scores all the way from second solely as a resul of the sac fly, with no error intervening, it is a sacrifice fly.
In the 1982 World Series Tom Herr famously hit a two-run sacrifice fly, the only time that’s happened in a World Series. It happens in the regular season every now and then; Albert Pujols has done it.
I think he’s referring to my post where I said the situation the OP described was ruled a sac fly, but perhaps should have been an error. Some have said mental errors are not errors, but that’s really not always true. The case where an outfielder catches the 2nd out, flips the ball into the stands and runners advance is ruled an error even though it was not a physical, mechanical error.
Well, he did physically throw the ball in the stands.
My understanding is things like throwing to the wrong base or not throwing the ball or even just not trying to catch a fly ball are not considered errors. But if you physically do something (throw, attempt to field, attempt to catch) and physically fail then that is considered an error. Which is stupid, for more than one reason, but I think is the rule.
For the record, here is the specific clause in rule 10.12 that explains your situation: “A fielder’s mental mistake that leads to a physical misplay such as throwing the ball into the stands or rolling the ball to the pitcher’s mound, mistakenly believing there to be three outs, and thereby allowing a runner or runners to advance shall not be considered a mental mistake for purposes of this rule and the official scorer shall charge a fielder committing such a mistake with an error.”
Thanks for providing that. I think one could make a strong argument that by thinking there are 3 outs and just holding onto the ball, the mental error has led to a physical misplay. That being *not *throwing the ball.
I don’t disagree, but just next to that they explicitly call out these situations:
“The official scorer shall not charge an error if the pitcher fails to cover first base on a play, thereby allowing a batter-runner to reach first base safely. The official scorer shall not charge an error to a fielder who incorrectly throws to the wrong base on a play.”
To me those are pretty much the same as “not throwing the ball”.
In the end, a pretty arbitrary and stupid way to attempt to measure defense.
What if the first baseman doesn’t cover first base? If he’s just spaced out and doesn’t move he gets no error? Seems ridiculous.
I guess I agree that by the letter of the rule, not throwing the ball is technically not the same as tossing it into the stands or rolling it to the pitcher’s mound, but the end result is the same.