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Got into a “philosophical” debate with a long time D1 coach the other day. A RHB hit a pitch right on the nose. The ball was a low liner, and hit right at the F4 who was playing at “normal” depth and toward 2nd with no one on and no outs. He made the mistake of not moving forward, and the ball ate him up. He got a glove on it, but all he could do was slow it down a bit and of course the batter-runner reached 1st safely.

 

I didn’t even blink and marked it E4. The old coach said it should have been a hit because it was too hot to handle with ordinary effort. I didn’t change it, but I did give him the courtesy of thinking about it.

 

Now a shot back to the pitcher is one thing because he’s only about 50’ from the ball when it gets hit. Assuming the hitter is a good HS hitter and the pitcher a decent pitcher who throws 80+, chances are the ball’s gonna get hit about 90MPH at most. At that speed, the ball will be traveling about 130 FPS, which means the pitcher’s got about 4 tenths of a second to react. If it happens to an F5 or F3 playing even with the bag, they’ve got about 7 tenths of a second to react. But an F6 or F4 has about a full second to react if they’re playing at normal depth and toward the bag.

 

A ball hit solidly and right at the pitcher that he doesn’t make a play on will seldom if ever be an error in my book, and unless the ball is on the glove side and pretty much at the same height as the glove, its not likely it would be an error on the corner infielders either. But its an entirely different matter for the middle infielders. A second is a lot of time in baseball, so barring something like a bad hop, even an average F4 or F6 should be able to field a ball hit not only to their glove side, but at the same height as the glove as well.

 

My logic seems solid to me, but after all it is my logic. I was just wondering if others have given the ol’ “too hot to handle” play much thought.

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Was the ball hit right at him or to his glove side.  The post includes references/examples of both.

If he had moved forward, would he have caught the line drive, short hopped it, or would the ball have bounced 5 feet in front, directly at him or to his glove side?

It seems like you are saying the line drive was at glove level height when it reached the 2b and he failed to make the play(but I don't understand the comment on late moving forward if that is the situation.) If the line drive reached him in the air at glove level height, why does moving forward or not make a difference?

It might also be conceivable the 2B did not see the ball off the bat(background) and did not react as you "expected" he should, which seems reasonable considering your acknowledgment he was late to move forward(made the "mistake of not moving foward" in your words.

Whether he didn't move forward or not, if it was a line drive which reached the 2B at glove level height, on the glove side, without hitting the ground, that would have to be a ball which was really smoked for it to be something other than an error.

But, if the failing to move forward is part of a play where the  ball  hit the ground/short hopped him/ate him up and the ball, when it reached him was not glove height and on the glove side, perhaps it was a judgment call and, per most of your posts, the coach and you disagreed?

The ball was to his glove side and virtually at the same level. IMHO, if he’d have moved forward for it, he definitely had a chance to catch it in the air. It would depend on how fast and how far he moved.

 

The coach who disagreed with me is nearly 80 and is nearsighted. Not only that, he’s the 1st one to admit that he couldn’t care less about the scoring rules. I’ve told him before that there’s 2 ways to look at plays. One is from the perspective of a coach, the other is from the perspective of a scorer, and the two often don’t coincide. Our HC disagreed with me. The other team’s HC agreed with me. The batter was ours.

Hard line drives to MIFs are tricky.  They often seem to knuckle and when hit right at you and it usually takes a second to determine just how hard they were hit.  So moving the feet to set yourself forward or back within a second is often not realistic.  In our last game, our SS had a hard shot hit right at his arm side foot.  He snapped his glove down and back-hand picked it cleanly, surprising everyone (probably including himself).  Had the ball landed a foot or two further in front, there is no way he would have been able to move forward to make that play and I'm sure he would have gotten eaten by the ball and at least nine times out of ten, that is scored a hit.  Like most, I think you have to see it.

I've been scoring a lot of HS softball lately and find it harder than baseball. F3 and F5 are usually playing in front of the bag as much as 10-15' (45-50' from batter). Hard ground balls are constantly eating them up, so I'm making as many as three or four of these calls every game.

 

I usually factor in how hard the ball was hit, glove side or backhand side, height of ball when it passed the fielder and how the fielder moved.

 

Glove side, thigh high and kind of hard is an error, missile on the backhand on the ground is a hit. Everything else is judgement.

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