Pitch hitting home plate

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Apr 9, 2017
13
3
This might seem like a silly question, but I have to admit I don't know the answer ...

I'm umping a rec. league 10u game last night. To be honest, the pitching wasn't great and I was expanding the strike zone (within reason). A question I thought of is, on several occasions the pitched ball would hit home plate, kind of like you would see in a slow-pitch game. If these pitches met the height requirements (chest to knees) before bouncing, should they be considered strikes? My feeling is "yes," they should, but it feels odd to call a ball that hits the a plate a strike without a swing.
 
Jul 22, 2015
851
93
This might seem like a silly question, but I have to admit I don't know the answer ...

I'm umping a rec. league 10u game last night. To be honest, the pitching wasn't great and I was expanding the strike zone (within reason). A question I thought of is, on several occasions the pitched ball would hit home plate, kind of like you would see in a slow-pitch game. If these pitches met the height requirements (chest to knees) before bouncing, should they be considered strikes? My feeling is "yes," they should, but it feels odd to call a ball that hits the a plate a strike without a swing.
I have to admit that umpiring rec ball with pitches coming in at such an arc, I have called strikes on some pitches that hit the back of the plate or right behind it because they did cross the plate as a strike.
 
Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
Pretty sure all the regular rule sets require a ball to land beyond the plate. They have different wording. I think NFHS explicitly says hitting the plate is a ball, but that could be one of the others.

imo, even when expanding the zone, hitting the plate should never be a strike. If it lands just beyond the plate, maybe, but not only is hitting the plate by rule not a strike, it's a very obvious thing that's just going to get a lot of people yelling at you.
 
Jun 13, 2018
33
8
In rec, it's sometimes hard to open the strike zone wide enough.
Gotta go with what moves the game along. A walk-fest benefits no one.

Very true that a walk-fest benefits no one. However you simply can't call a pitch that hits home plate a strike. Maybe (wishful thinking) a walk-fest will motivate the pitcher (or her coach or her parents) to get better.
 
Mar 1, 2013
396
43
Ball hits the plate - ball. Doesn't matter where it crossed the front of the plate. Ball. Every time.

Walk fests are not fun for the players or for the umpires. The game gets boring and the kids start looking for a walk because the pitcher couldn't hit water if she fell out of a boat. That's not up to the umpire to make unhittable pitches strikes. I'm ok with calling the river, especially in instructional/rec leagues but not expanding it drastically. I called one of the leagues at 10U here where they redefined the strike zone as "top of the ankles to top of the shoulders and six inches on either side of the plate". So basically, "chins to shins, box to box". The strike zone was massive and we got a lot of called third strikes on pitches that really any decent hitter shouldn't be swinging at. "Helping" the pitchers doesn't necessarily help them, honestly. They learn that they don't need a lot of control.. Just toss it in and it will be a strike as long as it's near the plate. Also, consider that the batters learning that they have to swing at something that's a foot outside at their eyes doesn't help them develop into good hitters either.

As for a walk fest benefitting no-one - to an extent this is true but consider the umpire. 10 batters per half inning (some artificial limit put on in most of these rec leagues), full count, or near that to every batter, you get in 100 squats per full inning. In a 4 inning game, it's quite the workout. I did so much 12U rec this year that my thighs are like pieces of rebar.
 

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