Did You Know This Baseball Rule?

Okay, so we have a situation here between the Pirates and the Reds. I want to break this down. I was sent this this morning. We have a ground ball to third with a runner on third. We have a throw to the plate, a catch, and a tag. And so let's break this play down because there's a lot of things going on right here. A lot of comments being made about the runner and the path that he takes to the plate. We can look at it from the offensive perspective, from the defensive perspective. There's a lot of things that are happening right here. So let's start off looking at this from an offensive perspective. So we get the ground ball here. The runner knows in this situation that there's a potential play at the plate. And so the runner takes a path that is very, very far inside. So he has a lot of options here. And what you'll usually see at a lower level of baseball you're going to just see the runner run straight ahead. So why does the runner run so drastically inside? And then we're going to talk about the rule. Well, here's what I teach our base runners. Anytime there's going to be a play at a base where there's a tag attempt. There's going to be a tag attempt. We want to run towards the fielder's glove. And so in this situation, the ball is hit obviously in fair territory. The catcher knows that the throw is going to be made in fair territory. So that catcher is going to get to the inside. He's going to try to create a throwing lane for the third baseman. Now as the runner at third, you understand this situation. And so once the ball is hit, you have to get from foul ground into fair territory. When you take your lead at third, you're always going to be in foul territory. Because if the ball were to hit you, if you were in foul territory, then it's just a foul ball. If you take your lead in fair territory and the ball hits you, you are out. And so you're taking your lead in foul territory. The ball is hit. It's in fair territory. You now see the runner quickly go from the outside to the inside. You want to run at the catcher's glove. Again, that's what we teach our players. Run at the catcher's glove because you're trying to get in this throwing lane. What you're hoping for right here is that he throws the ball and it hits you directly in the back. Now this throw is a perfect throw and it just gets to the right of the runner. And you might say, well, why is he running that far inside? If he had stayed a little bit more to this side, it hit him in the back. Well, you have to remember he's running and he can't see where the field is fielding the ball. So he knows the ball is somewhere over here. And he's trying as much as he can to get into that direct lane. He just guesses a little bit too far this way. But again, the rule is you want to run at the catcher's glove to get in that path. Now you might be saying, why is he allowed to run that far inside? That should be out of the baseline, right? Well, I'll give you the wording here. It says a runner's base path is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base he is attempting to reach safely. So the wording of that is really important. The base path is established or created when the tag attempt occurs. So until there's a tag attempt, there is no base path. So he does not have to run in a straight line. He can create his own. He can come in here. He can go way out here. It doesn't matter, right? So he's inside. So now that there is a tag attempt. Now at this point, he can't stop and run way over here and do circles and try to run, you know, all the way around the catcher there. You can't do that once the tag attempt is happening. But before that, you can come as far inside as you want. So you can do this at any base except for first base. At first base, there's a runner's lane. So you have to stay in that runner's lane. But at third base, if you're running the second base, it doesn't matter. As long as it's not the first base, you can run as far in here as you want. Okay, so that's from the offensive perspective. Now, let's talk about the defensive perspective. And actually, let me back up real quick. I don't know how many runners are on base because I wasn't watching this game. But I did have a few people say, you know, this is a horrible read by Reynolds. Here's the thing. There's such thing as a contact play. So there's a bunch of different ways that we can run this at third base, depending on the amount of outs, depending on where the runners are. If there's bases loaded and the ball's on the ground, obviously, we have to run home. But if there's not bases loaded and there's not two outs, right? If there's two outs, again, you're going to run home on the ground. Let's say that there's one out and you're at third base. Well, you can do a bunch of things. And the communication is going to come from the third base coach. They might say, hey, contact play. Ball on the ground. Just go home. We don't care where it's hit. Just go home. We're going to put pressure on the infielders. They might say, hey, see the ball through the infield. Make sure it gets through the infield and then go home. So there's a bunch of different things you can do. So right here, it looks like contact play is on. You can see the second that ball's hit on the ground, bang, he's off. So that's not a bad read by the runner at third. I did have some people say that. Okay, now let's go to the defensive perspective. This is a really nice play. He makes this look really easy. This is not an easy play. As a third baseman, here's a couple of things you're looking for. First thing. If you see the ball is hit and you see contact with the ground quickly. So the ball is hit straight down into the ground. It hits the dirt or it might even, looks like it either gets the plate or just off the chest in front of the plate. The second you see the ball hit down, you're going to get this high hop. So you're reading high hop. The second you read high hop, you come get the ball, right? So he reads high hop, bang, he starts to come in. Now he's going to try to get the short hop. So he's going as hard as he can to try to create that short hop where the ball is going to basically hit the ground and then go into the glove. So we're always looking to feel the long hop or the short hop. And so he goes and attacks that. If he didn't do this, if he sat back, so let's say the ball hits and he sits back and waits for it, they score a run right here. So the only way you get this runner is you've got to attack that high chopper. So the second you see ball up, you're attacking, trying to get that short hop, right? So not only does he get the short hop, but now he has to throw on the run, which is a wrong foot throw. So you're going to throw off your right foot. We just call those wrong foot throws. He's got to throw off his right foot. And he has to try to get this ball past the runner, which is really difficult. And I've played third a lot and there's times where you get the ball right here and you can't even see the catcher because this guy is literally directly in your view. And so you've got to just kind of throw it and hope that the ball will kind of do exactly what it does here and just get by his right shoulder. I mean, it doesn't miss him by very much. It's very close. So really, really nice play by the third baseman. Now as the catcher, you'll notice the catcher. Once the ball is hit, the catcher knows again that this ball is in fair territory. So as a catcher, you try to create that lane. So you try to get out here. So you'll see the catcher quickly get to the inside. So notice how he puts his left foot here. His right foot's over here. He's to the inside. So he's trying to create the lane, but then you have Reynolds. He's trying to block the lane. So there's a lot of things going on on this play. And then we have the catch and then we have to apply the tag. So all around, really solid play. A lot of things happening in a simple play. A lot of players or people might not realize all the things that are happening mentally, all the decisions that are going into this. And people might also not realize about the rule where the runner establishes the lane. So he can go inside as far as he wants, again, until that tag is occurring. So this is a perfectly legal play by the runner. So solid baseball all the way around. Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below. Subscribe to the channel. Hit the notification bell. Give it a thumbs up. All that good stuff. We'll talk to you later.