Bad pitching

[sluggers]

The "dropped third rule" is part of the "control of ball" rules. Control of the ball is a big deal in softball/baseball.

Force outs, tag outs, and fly outs are outs *only* when the ball is "in possession" of a fielder. Runners are only out for "running out of basepath" if a fielder has control of the ball. A foul ball never creates an out until a fielder controls it. (A batter can foul off a hundred balls without an out being called.)

Teams can only call time-out when a fielder has control of the ball.

So, the dropped third is consistent with the rest of the rules.

 

[SJVCoachingDad]

The “dropped third rule” also prevents the defense from turning a single out into two or more. Without the rule any situation where all runners are forced to run could easily result in a double play.

For example: runner on first, catcher drops 3rd strike intentionally, throws to 2nd, then 1st. Double play. Or bases loaded no outs, catcher drops third strike intentionally, steps on home, throws to 3rd, then to 2nd…triple play. This is why the rule doesn’t apply with 2 outs.

 

[CoachCeetar]

The “dropped third rule” also prevents the defense from turning a single out into two or more. Without the rule any situation where all runners are forced to run could easily result in a double play.

For example: runner on first, catcher drops 3rd strike intentionally, throws to 2nd, then 1st. Double play. Or bases loaded no outs, catcher drops third strike intentionally, steps on home, throws to 3rd, then to 2nd…triple play. This is why the rule doesn’t apply with 2 outs.

You've got it backwards. It doesn't apply with a runner on first with LESS than 2 outs.

Which is why this is wrong.

Force outs, tag outs, and fly outs are outs *only* when the ball is "in possession" of a fielder.

If there's a runner on first with one out and the pitcher flings it into the backstop and the batter swings..the batter is out and walks back to the dugout.


I just think it's a silly relic. We've centered both sports to the pitcher-catcher matchup over the centuries, so allowing the loser of that battle to reach because of a leftover rule seems dumb to me.

 

[RADcatcher]

I...

any pitchers in your family???

 

[CoachCeetar]

any pitchers in your family???

My daughter's been pitching for 9 months. I've held this opinion about the dropped third strike thing for two decades. *shrug*

It's not really "bad pitching" if a pitcher throws a pitch that breaks wildly causing the batter to swing and miss. I think calling it a wild pitch is a misnomer because that was the intent, and calling it a passed ball unfairly discredits the catcher on what might've been a real tough pitch to even catch. But it's neither of those things if the PREVIOUS batter walked with 1 out.

The alternative is only throwing pitches the catcher can catch, but that's unnecessarily limiting. We decided a long time ago that it was okay for pitchers to throw outside the strike zone if they could get the batter to swing. The whole concept of pitch sequencing is based on this, so why are we still penalizing them for it, sometimes? Wild Pitches and Passed Balls already exist. The runner at first can already take off on those.

 

[Rolling Hard]

The catcher should be aware of the pitch that is intentionally outside or even in the dirt and be able to catch the ball.
Seen teams that coach batters to run everytime the they strike out. Catchers have been know to unnecessarily throw ball around resulting in stolen bases and even runs scoring.

 

[CoachJD]

I just think it's a silly relic. We've centered both sports to the pitcher-catcher matchup over the centuries, so allowing the loser of that battle to reach because of a leftover rule seems dumb to me.

It's not a relic or a leftover. It's integral to the very point and purpose of the game.

As others have explained to you, the defense must possess the ball to get outs. Simply throwing a ball past a batter is not sufficient to get them out. I'm not sure why that's difficult to understand. That's only half the job. The other half is actually catching the thrown ball. Why? Because that's how the game is played in every respect.

With the exception of certain offensive rule violations (interference, batting out of order, etc.), the defense must possess the ball to get an out. It's illogical and inconsistent to say that isn't necessary for a strike out.

And keep in mind that the rule is "off" in certain situations to protect the offense. It's literally the same as the Infield Fly Rule, which is not designed to be a "free out" for the defense, but instead it is there to protect the offense from being unfairly doubled or tripled up.

You can not like the rule. You can like or not like whatever you want. But you also can't reasonably argue for or against a rule simply on the basis of your whims. Well, unless you're writing the NCAA Softball rule book.

 

[Nuwin]

If we're gonna go down the rabbit hole on this rule, I'd much rather argue over the word "dropped" than having it or not having it. You get someone to swing at something that bounces in the dirt but is picked cleanly isn't dropped. It just wasn't caught by definition and the rule still applies.

But I will say that I am very appreciative of the tournaments we played where that rule was omitted in 10U. Expanding on what ArmWhip said, also having poor fitting community gear, or a general lack of understanding on the position to properly prepare girls to do the job, was very frustrating.

I also got frustrated that this turned into a get on base hack for girls afraid to swing the bat. I think most people probably here know 'em when they see 'em. And I was very annoyed to award them a base because their default response was to run to 1B any time they had 2 strikes. It was never to swing though. Gotta wonder how much parents can derail their kids progress sometimes because I never taught em to do that.

As for setting up correctly with the safety bag - we had a miracle out where our girls actually did what we practiced. Once. Including a call / response of the C and 1B saying "outside" to say where the throw was going. Well... I learned that a lot of people think this is illegal. At least at lower levels. Opposing coach lost it. Parents followed suit. Umpire shut it down quickly thankfully. But I was getting to the point where I was doubting myself since I wasn't seeing anyone else do it. (Hopefully because they weren't having to make the throw of course...) But we live in an age where I can have every rulebook available at my disposal in my pocket. And it is much more easily searchable than an old school book! I can even find PDFs that outline rulebook differences.

 

[RADcatcher]

Agree, the word *dropped is not the best fit of verbiage to describe the situation.

Also it is hard to describe accurately what a wild pitch is. When some catchers have great range and some have near none.

 

[CoachCeetar]

It's not a relic or a leftover. It's integral to the very point and purpose of the game.

As others have explained to you, the defense must possess the ball to get outs. Simply throwing a ball past a batter is not sufficient to get them out. I'm not sure why that's difficult to understand. That's only half the job. The other half is actually catching the thrown ball. Why? Because that's how the game is played in every respect.

With the exception of certain offensive rule violations (interference, batting out of order, etc.), the defense must possess the ball to get an out. It's illogical and inconsistent to say that isn't necessary for a strike out.

And keep in mind that the rule is "off" in certain situations to protect the offense. It's literally the same as the Infield Fly Rule, which is not designed to be a "free out" for the defense, but instead it is there to protect the offense from being unfairly doubled or tripled up.

You can not like the rule. You can like or not like whatever you want. But you also can't reasonably argue for or against a rule simply on the basis of your whims. Well, unless you're writing the NCAA Softball rule book.

I understand just fine, I just disagree. I think pitching has changed over 150 years that the "defense must possess the ball" caveat is not really intended by the interaction of batter-pitcher, and no longer needed. Infield fly is yet another adjustment to the rules that breaks that guideline. The interaction between the pitcher and batter is completely changed from what it was when this rule was created.

You can like the rule, the different things it adds to the game. That's fine, I'm just pointing out in this necro tread that I think it's past it's prime and we should continue to center the pitcher-batter matchup and reward pitchers that get batters to swing at strike three tailing away 3' off the plate.

Rules change all the time, go away, etc. This forum is full of subjective rules arguments. There's other ones in both softball and baseball that I think would be better changed, added, or eliminated. That's part of the evolution of the game.

If the runner interferes with a fielder, the runner is out. The defense does not possession of the ball. The offense made a mistake that the umpires rule would have likely been an out. Not really that different than the offense swing and missing at a third pitch.

My tl:dr point of all this is: The pitcher did something good, the batter did something bad, and it's a weird quirk that would allow the batter to reach in that situation, including the randomness of playing surfaces, backstop distance and bounciness, etc. We should reward the greater athletic feat.