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Originally Posted by PWL
R2 is 100% past R3 in this play because R3 retreated back past 3B. It's that freakin' simple.
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If it was actually that simple, we wouldn't disagree, would we. I can't see how any sane umpire would think that R3 stumbling past third base, down the LF line is retreating toward 2nd base - which is what he'd have to be doing for R2 to be past him.
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In reality R2 is now R3 since he standing on the base.
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No ... until the end of the play, all runners retain their original nomenclature - otherwise describing any play where runners advance at all becomes completely chaotic. Then again ... I have no idea why you even said this, as it does not give any insight into the actual answer to this question.
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But he becomes an out when the original R3 retreats past 3B and in rule book actuality is returning to 2B. We are going forward on the bases, not backwards.
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Here is the crux of the question. I fail to find anything in the book to support this supposition - that falling into the outfield is "in actuality returning to 2B". Let's ask it this way - absent any other runners, if you have a runner run toward third and fall into the outfield - and the ball gets away, do you require a retouch of third base on the way home? The rest of us don't - which kind of dismisses the notion that he's returning to 2nd by landing in left field. If you have ANY rules or casebook basis for claiming that this runner is technically returning to 2nd, I'd love to see it - we might have something to discuss. Lacking that, I think I'm done here.
Perhaps you are visualizing the runner falling much further toward 2nd base than I am - and in my original post I did say that if he was far enough toward 2nd that from, for example, PU's vantagepoint, R3 becomes further to the right than R2, then I would agree with your call. But if he's not - merely falling into LF does not equate to returning to 2nd base.