SAC, FC or Hit
Question
With runners on first and second no outs the batter given the bunt sign to advance the runners. She bunts down the third base line. The third baseman fields the ball starts to throw but decides not to. Every runner safely advances. It is ruled a fielder's choice. Since the batter was asked to sacrifice her at bat by bunting but reached safely without an attempt to put out any advancing runner should it be ruled a SAC, FC or a hit? I looked for examples of FCs and SACs but did not find any with this particular scenario. Thanks
Answer
I guess the best thing to do in this case would be to eliminate options. It couldn't be ruled a hit obviously. A Fielder's Choice and error would be the ruling if the ball had been hit instead of bunted. I personally would rule it a sacrifice since the obvious intent here is to advance runners. There was an error on the third baseman, but rule one under scoring sacrifices states to score it as a sacrifice if the bunt advanced runners and and batter was called out at first or would of been out had an error not occurred.
http://nfca.org.ismmedia.com/ISM2/MultimediaManager/ATEC.pdf
I hope this was helpful, Steve, and please let me know if you come across any other unusual situations.
Coach Mike
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