Fielder's Choice

George asked: If a batter gets a clean single between third and short and a slow running gets thrown out at second, does the batter get charged with a fielder's choice?

Thanks George


Rick answered: George, thank you for your question.


Rule 9.05 (a) to 9.05 (b)

9.05 Base Hits

A base hit is a statistic credited to a batter when such batter reaches base safely, as set forth in Rule 9.05

(4) the batter reaches first base safely on a fair ball that has not been touched by a fielder and that is in fair territory when the ball reaches the outfield, unless in the scorer's judgment the ball could have been handled with ordinary effort.

(b) the official scorer shall not credit a base hit when a:

1) Runner is forced out by a batted ball, or would have been forced out except for a fielding error.


As you can tell, there seems to be some grey area in this situation.

The batter should be awarded a base hit, as the ball traveled cleanly past the infield, to the outfielder.

The runner happened to be slow; but that shouldn't take away from the clean single. Runner out, 7-4 at second base.

No one gets penalized statistically here, there are no rbi's to consider, lean in favor of the hitter.


Yours in baseball,

Rick