quote:
Originally posted by luv baseball:
Guilty on the MLB ORB. It's what I had handy. NFHS reading as you describe I agree with, even though my gut says SAC is the right scoring.
He's trying to plate the winning run as the top priority so unless he's a burner he's hanging in there to make sure he gets it down so beating the rap at 1st so barring a great bunt or an overrun by the defense they will get him at 1B a real high percentage of the time.
Despite all that commentary....rules is rules!
No matter what happens, unless the scorer is looking for trouble, s/he shouldn't try to guess what was in player’s mind, or what might have happened, unless the rules say to do that, as in the case of determining earned runs where the benefit of any doubt is given to the pitcher. In the scenario JMoff gave us, the batter wasn’t put out, and the only clue we have as to whether or not there was even a chance he could have been, was that the bunt was placed perfectly. With nothing more than that to go on, I’m giving the batter the benefit of the doubt every time.
It seems to me that to do anything else would be to say that no matter what, a batter that bunts with a runner on should never be given a base hit because his assumed intention was to give himself up for an out. But in the end, that’s why scorers don’t score everything exactly the same way. And after all, as far as the team goes, what’s the big difference if it’s a hit, a sac, or a FC? Would the dog pile be bigger if it were one as opposed to the other? Would the win mean any more or any less if it were one as opposed to the other? As long as the scorer does what s/he feels is best and doesn’t violate any rules, its all good.