Commenter Thomas Brown has been jonesing for some baseball content here at Get The Picture. Because I try to be responsive to my readers’ needs, I thought I’d provide a fix, so here goes.
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(h/t The Agitator)
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The commentators keep saying there are no rules about this sort of thing, but the umpire is absolutely within his rights and the rules to force a batter to get into the box. He can give the pitcher the “ok to pitch” sign, and start calling strikes until the batter gets into the box. It’s the rule I wish umps would start enforcing anyway, so that the games aren’t 3.5 hours long
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But why should the batter have to “suck it up” and hit from only one side (i.e., be punished for not getting in the box), but the pitcher can do whatever he wants? If there is no rule (is there?) against switching, then there’s no rule. Arbitrarily giving the pitcher the “OK” sign makes it out to be the batter’s fault for the delay. The “switch” pitcher is the source of the strategic oddity that led to this absurdity.
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Why should the switch pitcher be at a disadvantage when he went through the trouble of getting good enough with both arms to be a minor league pitcher with both arms.
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Here’s the ESPN story on this. It looks like the issue boils down to who chooses a side first – the hitter or the pitcher.
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