Did he lean?

He dropped his elbow on that one. Keep him in the box with a full count. Besides, if he didn't attempt to get there, the Pirates bench would have cleared for "throwing at our batters!" 

Yep...hate to see PG broke up that way.

Yes he did lean.  Maybe he will get one in the ribs tomorrow since he doesn't mind getting hit??

 

 

Didn't really lean, but definitely dipped into it. Bush league in my opinion. Maybe in a 1-0 game, but 6-0 with no legitimate chance to get back in the game, let the pitch go by you. If he doesn't dip, we have a perfect game.

Yup, its gonna happen if he comes in.

I thought he leaned into it. I thought it was cheap.6-0 and you lean in? Oh well.

 

I think he leaned in.  My first thought was that it was cheap, but then isn't it his job to do what he can to get on base?  And isn't it the umpire's job to make the right call?  Is it cheap if he bunts?  I'm not sure I agree with the idea of conceding a no-hitter or perfect game, but very ambivalent about this one.

HBP. I'm not even giving that a second thought. Sucks that he missed his spot that badly that close to finishing a perfect game.

Take the elbow guard off and try it . That was crap and this is from a disgruntled Tigers fan.

My wife, oldest son and I watched the conclusion of the Nats game yesterday (yes, I've given up on the Red Sox).  After seeing it live and the replay, we all thought he dipped his elbow into the pitch.  He did not make an attempt to avoid the pitch....it is a ball not a trot to first base.  

 

I like the fact that umpires are calling this more, however this umpire isn't one of them.  I'd like to see instant reply extended to HBPs so the behind the plate umpire can get another (better) angle and slow it down.  The field umpires could help, but we all know how that works...a field umpire is not going to overrule an action that just happened a foot in front of the home plate umpire.  JMO.

The rest of us must be stupid.

He was HBP..duh, intentionally. No one comes in wearing arm guard unless they repeatedly get hit on the elbow.

 

You do what you gotta do to get on base. However, all body padding should be outlawed in baseball. Otherwise, they may as well play with a sponge ball instead of a hard ball. I lose a lot of respect for those who go up there with body armor. There's no excuse for it. 

You bet he put that elbow guard on the ball. 

Originally Posted by bballman:

…If he doesn't dip, we have a perfect game.

 

Seems to me that if he wasn’t hit he might just have gotten a hit and not only broken up the PG but the no-no as well.

 

 

Originally Posted by zombywoof:

You do what you gotta do to get on base. However, all body padding should be outlawed in baseball. Otherwise, they may as well play with a sponge ball instead of a hard ball. I lose a lot of respect for those who go up there with body armor. There's no excuse for it. 

 

I don’t mind it being used if a player has an injury he’s trying to protect. I’d also like to see a rule change that if a player gets hit on “armor”, it counts as a ball but isn’t a HBP.

Are you just looking for an argument?

Originally Posted by Matt13:

Are you just looking for an argument?

 

I’m with you on this one Matt. The pitch was close to a foot inside and moving that way. Too bad, but it’s not the batter who threw the pitch. I think it’s too bad too, but it’s in the books.

Lost in all of this was that Scherzer came within 1 hit of equaling something thats only been done once in MLB - Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no-hitters in 1938.

 

Really amazing when you think about it.

 

Matt - I am really not trying to start an argument with you - in fact I doubt TPM was either.  Frankly, I thought maybe you were trying to start one yourself.  But I'll take your initial comment seriously.  I think there is no question, whatsoever, that Tabata dipped into the pitch.  And I think it was pretty ridiculous, especially given the situation.  I wouldn't know, but I'll guess he'll get a real HBP somewhere down the line.

 

I do think it woulda been a very tough call for an umpire to make and I'm not criticizing the umpire - but if we were going by the letter of the rule, I think he shoulda been held in the box with a full count.  And I thought that before I ever saw it in slo-mo.  I was watching the game live when it happened.

 

I know you umpire Matt - and I think at a fairly high level?  You should know that I respect what you do because I would never do it ('cept for some youth games).  I doubt I could take the constant barrage that umpires endure.  I know enough about how I would feel, that I just couldn't do it.

 

I have many umpire friends through the years.  Good people.  But one thing I've never understood is that almost uniformly they will defend calls made/not-made by their brethren - sometimes to a point of doing somersaults to do so.  I don't think you're turning somersaults - but I do think if you really believe the guy didn't dip into that pitch - well, I just think you're sorta 'blinded' by the faith in your fellow men in blue.

 

Just an opinion, nothing more.

 

 

 

I don't know a single umpire that will defend a bad call. Explain why it happened, maybe, but not defend.

 

The way this is officiated is simple (and it's used in some other situations, as well.) Punish the team that screwed up. If a pitch is in the box, and the batter makes no obvious attempt to get hit, he gets first. I reiterate the word "obvious." It has to be blatant. Do I think he tried to get hit here? Most likely. That's not enough to keep him there, though. It's hard to justify a call of "ball" here when the batter doesn't really move outside of where he was originally.

 

As I've pointed out to people, this rule has been virtually unchanged in its written form since the days that breaking balls were illegal. It's a different game now. The reason we look for obvious intent is simply consistency. Pitches break, and they break hard. We cannot expect a batter to take a hit to the side and be forced to keep batting every time a breaking pitch fails to break. Also, it's often very tough to distinguish an aborted swing, an attempt to get out of the way, and a sly attempt to get hit. If we use the criteria of blatant or obvious, there's far less hair-splitting. And for plays like this, I'm fairly confident that he gets first nearly 100%, no matter the situation.

Matt - I've heard exactly that discussion from my own umpiring friends and I'm fine with it.

 

But let me be clear - when I watched it live (from the CF camera shot), I thought for sure he dipped into it.  The slo-mo replay confirms it as far as I'm concerned.

 

Was the umpire wrong to not call it?  No.  But would he have been wrong TO call it?  No, not in my opinion.  I'll go so far as to say that if the umpire saw (from the reverse angle, so I doubt it) what I saw in real-time, then in my view, he shoulda kept the batter in the box irrespective of the situation.  But I'm a parent of 2 pitchers, so maybe I have my own biases?

 

But none of that (the umpire's no-call) was the intent of the post.  Just thought it was an interesting incident worthy of discussing - probably more from the 'will the hitter face retribution?' question than anything else.

Jose Tabata has been in 10 games with  14 at bats. SO 2x, 5H,1HBP,

GOx8, AOx1, RBIx1, CSx1. 

 

Quite remarkable.

Where are you getting those numbers for Tabata?  They are not even in the ballpark.

Sorry, forgot to add last 10.

Elbow pads are made for catching a ball on the elbow.  In college this season I've seen that called a ball 8-10 times this season.

I didn't like it but at the end of the day it is on the pitcher, he made a mistake...and he made damn few. Awesome game.

 

BTW I hate the most move rule - IMO it is BS. Pitchers sometimes throw inside, batters sometimes get hit, even less often batters move into a pitch...nothing to see move on. bottom line if you the batter in the box (not a called strike) he gets first base and carry on.

I realize I'm awfully late to this party, but here is my view of some of the issues raised:

 

--I have mixed feelings about "armor." I don't like the apparent fact that these devices are encouraging players to let themselves get hit. On the other hand, getting hit is a real risk for all players, and I am generally supportive of protective equipment, especially on joints regularly exposed to 95-mph fastballs. I don't see an easy way to regulate this issue away, but it is a real issue. 

 

--There is never a point in any potential no-hitter or perfect game at which players on the losing team should feel any obligation to surrender or stop trying to get on base by any means they can. I don't care if you're down 1-0 or 12-0 with two outs in the ninth. In baseball, as long as you have life, there is hope.  The batter never has to join the celebration and he should not be expected to facilitate the milestone event by taking any tactics off the table--bunting, gettting hit by a pitch, whatever.  It is not "bush" for players to keep scapping and clawing until all 27 outs have been recorded. Actually, you could make the case that it is a hallmark of professionalism to refuse to give up in that situation.

 

--It seems the batter dropped his elbow but did not move his elbow closer to home plate. Also, the batter was not initially crowding the plate. The pitch was not only well within the batter's box, it was well within the frame of the batter's initial stance, and it was running in. Matt13's rough justice of "punish the team that screwed up" seems appropriate. Yes, the batter took advantage of the opportunity, but the pitcher created the opportunity by running the ball so far inside.

 

 

I think it is very clear he dipped his elbow and wore that. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was just habit/instinct and he thus didn't realize the magnitude of what was at stake, but I can't. I watched it live and I was honestly very upset and worked up about it after it happened. I'm not a Nats fan, but I would have been that way even if a pitcher I disliked had history on the line.

 

I absolutely hate all the armor guys are wearing now. The foot/ankle protection I get. A pitcher protecting his throwing arm in the box I get. A player protecting an injury/recent injury I get. But pretty much anything else I cannot stand. Either ban the armor, or direct umpires to follow the rules and stop awarding first base if there is no honest attempt to avoid being hit and obviously absolutely no leaning.

 

I guess being a former pitcher I am biased, but the one thing that used to piss me off to no end (and I didn't see it regularly until college) was when you are pitching inside and have no margin for error because most guys lean into the pitch or crowd the plate and just stand there and wear it.

 

And while I am not one to say when history is on the line just roll over and die, but these guys have all been playing ball their whole lives. They should have a respect for the game, the respect for history and know, I am not going to ruin history by leaning into a pitch and wearing it on this armor, or I am not going to drop a bunt down here to get on. Especially in a 6-0 game. There are 162 games in a season and while all are important, you gotta know the context and when to say, this guy has something going and if I am going to break it up, I am going to do it the right way. I know for a fact Tabata would be pissed if he had a three homer game and was up to the plate in the 9th with nobody on and 2 outs, his team up 6-0, and the opposing pitcher gave him an intentional pass.

Matt13 has it right IMO...if you don't want to hit a batter...keep the ball out of the batters box.

 

Scherzer lost the pitch and it rode in and hit the guy.  The ball was about a foot off the plate inside.  Dude in the box took one, if they were down 1 and not 6 and there was not a perfect game on the line I suspect this would be a whole other conversation. 

 

Further if he does the same thing in a playoff game down by one he becomes a "gamer", "heady", "tough" and "he took one for the team" or any of the dozen other ways to describe a HBP.

 

Stinks the perfecto was blown...but it is on Scherzer and not Tabata or the umpire.  He missed and paid a price for it.  That is why it was NOT a perfect game.  He was not perfect. 

 

Nevertheless it is a amazing back to back outings by him.

I don't think anyone is perfect in a perfect game. You are going to get a few amazing plays, you are going to get some called strikes that are out of the zone, and you are going to miss in off the plate more than once.

 

While different circumstances, using the "well don't throw the ball out of the batters box," couldn't we say the same for the Jim Joyce blown Galarraga near perfect game? If you don't want to chance the umpire blowing a call in the field or possibly beating it out, then you should have made him swing and miss. I don't think you can expect that. Joyce obviously made the wrong call and the plate umpire made the wrong call in Scherzer's game. In real time you could see him lean, and at worst, you could see he made no honest effort to avoid being hit, as stated in the rulebook. I wish that umpire has the nads to call it like it was called hours later in the Florida CWS game when the umpire told the kid to came back and called the pitch a ball rather than HBP.

 

At the end of the day, he still got his no-no, not quite as sweet as the perfecto, but much better than losing everything on a blooper. And you gotta tip your cap to how Scherzer answered questions about it after the game.

He didn't make the wrong call. There has to be an obvious intent to get hit for that not to be HBP.

 

BTW, the NCAA and OBR rules are different--so without seeing the video to which you allude, I can't comment on the relevant differences.

I think the Joyce call and this one are distinctly different affairs. 

On the Joyce call there was a play completely outside of the pitchers control once contact was made.  On that play there was irrefutable evidence that the defensive play had been successfully completed and that call was not correct.

 

This one here was entirely on the pitcher.  He threw the ball and created the action.  He missed his target and hit a batter.  Now you have a absolute judgement call about the batters intent with a pitch that is in his space. 

 

In MLB when the ball is well inside the batters box the pitcher has missed by a country mile.  Where is everyone screaming to call it the same way all the time?  In MLB that play is HBP 100 times out of 100.  He got sent to first as he should have been, it was a good call and a pretty simple one at that. 

 

I do not understand how the pitcher missing the plate by more than a foot and hitting a batter becomes the batter and umpires fault.  I am chalking it up to the heat.

My question would be, if there is a perfect game that enters the ninth inning, should the batters just stand there and stop competing?  I say, no.  Keep competing and playing.

Agree to disagree I guess. You seem to be well-versed with the rulebook, so I guess we are disagreeing on "the batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball." Not seeing how him standing there like a statue outside of blatantly lowering his elbow 6-9 inches qualifies as an attempt to avoid being touched by the baIl. If we are talking about Scherzer blazing a mid 90s heater in there, and Tabata was diving in to protect the outside corner, then fine, he didn't have time to react and it is what it is.

 

But the pitch that hit Tabata was an 86 mph slider that he started too far in and did not break.And what nobody else talks about, watch the replay: not only does he lean the elbow down, he takes his normal stride, and as the pitch is getting close, watch his feet, he does a quick subtle hop toward the plate with both feet as if to get a few extra inches closer to ensure it hits him. Now I don't expect the Ump to see the feet, but everything else was blatant. The feet just tell me where Tabata's head was at.

 

Still not seeing how something is a good call when the rulebook is not understood or blatantly ignored, but I guess they don't call the high strike by the book either, so there is that. I am not surprised it wasn't called, but I don't think u can say it was the right call. My beef is more w Tabata.

 

In quickly reading the NCAA rulebook, it looks like it is the same in college now, even adding additional language about leaning and intentionally being hit.

Perhaps a agree to disagree might be the way this ends.  HBP has been called this way since Teddy Roosevelt was President.

 

Cards game last night saw a guy get hit on a pitch behind him that it looked like he jumped backward into.  Loaded the bases and he trotted to first - and nobody got worked up about it.

 

I was thinking about this last night.  By the logic that is being put forth here Tony Conigliaro should not have gotten first base when Jack Hamilton nearly took his head off because he didn't make a move to get out of the way and let it hit him.

 

How about the kid that got it in the neck at the CWS on the bunt.  Squared up and bang right in the kisser.

 

If we want umpires suddenly not giving first base to guys on balls in the box on a regular basis the game could change significantly.  The inside part of the plate now becomes about foot or more off the inside edge.  The batters box is six inches from the inside of the plate and the stripe is usually 2 or 3 inches wide.  Since we are now giving the pitcher the inside edge of the batters box as a free fire zone that would make the outside part of the plate about 2 1/2 to 3 feet from an area that now belongs to the pitcher.  A ball on the outside edge would now literally be unhittable.

 

The plate belongs to the pitcher.  The box belongs to the batter.  Change that and you are mucking with the most important part of the game.  I am opposed - call it the way it has been forever.  The game is more important that Scherzer's perfecto IMO.

 

 

 

Yes, you are right on the agree to disagree. To muck things up even more, you are going opinions from ex hitters and ex pitchers, creating some bias. I think the examples you gave were instances of heat and definitely understandable. I think I mentioned it above, I don't really have beef with a guy getting smoked with a hard one, certainly a mid 90s fastball doesn't give you much time to do anything and sometimes you are going to be a deer caught in the headlights. I guess the issue I have is the hanging breaking balls and change ups that get away, or guys actually leaning body parts into fastballs, especially if you have a thumber out there. I honestly think an umpire that can judge if a Aroldis Chapman heater is a strike on the corner is certainly capable of making that judgment call.

RGDeuce,

 

If we debate what ought to be or how the rule should be enforced we won't get beyond "agree to disagree." 

 

If you want to change minds, show how this call differs from how this play gets called in MLB. Can you offer any examples of MLB batters not being awarded first base on comparable plays?

 

FWIW the difference in the amount of time between 86 and 95 MPH is .0455 seconds.  The time to blink an eye is 1/3 of a second which is 8X more time than the difference between 86 and 95.  The journey to the plate for the ball is .44 seconds at 95 or slightly more than a blink of the eye.

 

Maybe this will cause MLB to make it a priority to change the longstanding interpretation and enforcement of the HBP rule, but it would surprise me if that happens.

 

I also think if umpires start making guys stay in the box on a consistent basis the result will be worse baseball and not better baseball.  If pitchers get the idea that it is possible to drill a guy and the only penalty is Ball 1 that is not a good move for the game. 

I'm just debating and expressing my point of view. I guess it may come across as me trying to change minds, but that is really not my intent.

 

As for specific examples, I don't have much to offer, I know it is something that is almost always never called. I remember a strike being called on a player whose hands were over the inside corner and he got hit, I really want to say it was an Astro, Biggio or Bagwell. As for the Tabata situation, I have seen it in MLB once or twice (maybe more and cant recall) but again, yes it is rare. I wasn't alive for it, but that situation kept Don Drysdale's scoreless streak alive.

 

I think if there was a time to call it, it was in the Tabata situation with a perfect game on the line.I guess you are entering the danger zone in terms of umpires changing approaches to help perfection, but they do that already with the whole "you dont get those calls if you have been wild all game" and giving Maddux 3-6 inches off the corners because he is Greg Maddux and he is on.

 

This kind of reminds me of the "vicinity rule" on double plays. You used to NEVER see guys being called safe at second on double plays as long as the middle infielder was close. There were lots of times they weren't even close. Never called, but in recent years, you see it a lot more. It's just umpires need to make their minds up to follow the rules as they are written. I guess they have their own sets of unwritten rules themselves though.. I know at one point MLB got their umps together and trained them to start calling higher strikes. It can be done if MLB emphasizes it.