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With a pitched ball that does not end up hitting the bat or the batter, five things can happen: 1) the PU judges the pitch out of the strike zone and calls the pitch a ball, 2) the PU judged the pitch to have crossed the strike zone and calls a strike 3) the batter swings and misses resulting in a strike,!4) the batter checks his swing in such fashion that the PU judges he should use his discretion to immediately ask for an "appeal" ruling from the appropriate BU, 5) the batter checks his swing in such fashion that the PU does not ask for the appeal but the defensive team does think it is worth an appeal.
When the runner is breaking for second, there typically isn't time to get all the appeals straightened out when the time difference between whether a fastball or a curveball was thrown makes the difference as to whether the baserunner will be safe or out. With three balls on the batter, all I'm asking is that in 4) and 5), the umps simply let the play go on and retroactively settle the checked swing and BI/RI issues after the dust settles.
Let's say the batter had to take a step over the plate to avoid getting hit in the head by ball four and thus "interfered" with the catcher's throw to second. Would you seriously entertain the thought of calling him out for interference??? Technically, he could be ruled out for BI if it was not ball four (intentional or unintentional while out of the batter's box) but on ball four? That would just not make sense.
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