Blocking the Catchers view of the pitch
2016/7/15 16:41:03
Question
So this weekend, our 12U Girl's Team decided to employ a strategy of instructing our girl at bat to show a bunt WAY out over the plate in the hopes of blocking the catcher's clean view of the pitch while stealing our runner on base. As well, the girl at bat is instructed to NOT hit the ball but let it go by AND to very slowing move out of the way after the pitch. Both times we did this it worked VERY WELL.
1) Do you see any rule violations that we are making by doing this?
2) Can the batter be called for obstruction on this play?
Thank you.
-Coach Jason
Answer
Jason,
You run a big chance of having your batter commit interference. ASA 7.6.Q
"The batter is out when actively hindering the catcher while in the batters box."
It seems to me that this is exactly what you are doing.
If this happened to my catcher, I would point it out to the umpire that this is an intentional move on your batters part. If the umpire didn't address it the batter could get hurt as my catcher cleared a path for the throw.
Another solution to this strategy would be to throw inside fastballs in hopes of getting a hit by pitch and a strike for the batter being in the strike zone when hit. There are too many ways for the offense to address this, none of them are good for the batter.
Tom
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