Earned run?

In the future, ask a scoring or stat question in the Statistics and Scorekeeping forum. Umpires haven’t got a thing to do with scoring a game other than declaring whether or not a run counts.

As to your question, where in the rules does it say a complete inning must be reconstructed. What it says is, An earned run is a run for which a pitcher is held accountable. It doesn’t say anything about whether its in a full or partial inning.

When you reconstruct an inning you do it one run at a time, and in this case the rules tell you all you need to know. In determining earned runs, the official scorer shall reconstruct the inning without the errors (which exclude catcher’s interference) and passed balls, giving the benefit of the doubt always to the pitcher in determining which bases would have been reached by runners had there been errorless play.

Assuming the runner would have only moved to 3^rd on what ended up being a sac fly and the 2^nd out, all the scorer does is gives the benefit of the doubt to the pitcher because that’s all he’s got to work with.

UER.

That makes sense, Stats.  The pitcher only allowed the runner to reach second on the steal and maybe third on the tag.  It wouldn't seem fair to charge him for an earned run that would required a subsequent hypothetical 2-out event to occur.

I agree with Stats, I would have scored it unearned for the reasons he stated.

These umpires do know a thing or two about the scoring rules though...

Didn’t say they don’t know much about the scoring rules. I was trying to get across that the question would be better served in the Stats and Scoring forum, not because no umpires know anything about scoring, but rather that its not their job.

However, I will say that as a group umpires generally know more about the scoring rules than the coaches, the players, and for sure more than fans in general.

Easy- reconstruct inning to the point where game ended as if there were no errors. Thus, game ends in tie with runner stranded at 2nd or 3rd. The winning run is not charged to the pitcher. This is no different than a leadoff batter that reaches with a single and then advances to home on three consecutive passed balls.