Normally, a manager is allowed to pinch hit for a batter at any time. This is, of course, assuming that there is a player available on the bench to do the pinch hitting.
There are, however, two instances, in which a manager is not allowed to send a pinch hitter up for a player currently at bat, even if he does have another player on the bench. What are those two cases?
Zev Steinhardt
The DH listed on the opening lineup card has to bat once (unless he has somehow tripped and broken his leg in the dugout waiting to come up).
I’m still working on the second scenario.
Bob:
You are right about #1. However, there is an exception to that rule where you are allowed to pinch hit for the DH (even if he didn’t break his leg). Can you get it?
Zev Steinhardt
If the opposing team changes pitchers, you can pinch hit for the DH.
I think another scenario where you couldn’t pinch hit would be in a suspended game. You could have a guy on the bench, but he wasn’t on the roster for the original part of the game. He can’t play in the suspended game even if he is taking someone else’s roster spot. So, you could have a player on the bench who is eligible in every game except the one that is being completed.
Bob:
Once again you are correct. At least you are with regard to the DH.
However, you can use a newly acquired player in the resumption of a suspended game. (4.12(d)). In fact, if, for example, Jones was already out of the game when it was suspended, and you traded Jones for Smith, you could still put Smith in the game. This, in fact, allows a manager to theoretically use an infinite number of players in a game.
Zev Steinhardt
Bob T. keeps answering these questions before I even see 'em, though there was at least one that I didn’t know the answer to.
I HATE this rule (requiring the DH to bat once). This rule was implemented because Earl Weaver, in the late 70s/early 80s, would list a pitcher as his DH. More than once he listed a player who wasn’t even at the ballpark.
Why did he do this? Because he maintained his lineup flexibility. He would often platoon the DH spot, playing a lefty hitter against a righty pitcher. However, it dawned on him one day that if the opposing pitcher got hurt or was shelled and got removed before the DH came up, he might be facing a situation where an opposite handed pitcher came in and he’d have the wrong DH in the game. He then figured that he lost very little by having a the previous day’s starting pitcher (or an unavailable player) “start” as DH, and that player could be pinch hit for his first time up.
Unfortunately for him, the rules makes closed this loophole, citing “statistical integrity”. I don’t really know how listing a pitcher as your starting DH tears at the fabric of the game, but that’s just me.
The visiting team cannot pinch hit for the pitcher in the first inning. The rule is that the pitcher listed on the line up card must pitch to at least one batter, except for injury.
This, of course, only applies to the National League.
Correct, GK. It would, of course, also apply in the AL if the manager chose to have the pitcher bat, or, if before the DH spot came up, the team lost use of the DH.
Zev Steinhardt
For the record, even though I never get a chance to answer them (cuz they are answered too fast) I really dig these sports rules quizes.
For anyone else with a passion for sports rules, one book I highly recomend is “Anatomy of a Game” by David Nelson, ex-University of Delaware football coach and inventor of the Winged-T offense. I know it’s football, and not baseball, but it is by far the most interesting analysis of the development of modern sport I have read. A GREAT book.