Scoring question

[Clyde]

Originally posted by bluezebra

Just out of curiosity, why didn't someone, especially the on-deck batter, tell R3 to touch home? And, in my evil little mind, was R3, or a friend, in the running for the award?

Everyone (except the PU and catcher I guess) was watching the ball until it cleared the fence by which time R3 had already crossed the plate. This play happened at the beginning of the season and so no one was in the running for the award at that point. It's only now that the reglular season ends next week that this play has taken on such importance.

If we did as you suggested and counted the HR for the batter, the second place finisher would probably file a lawsuit assuming that this play was the margin of victory. I asked the question because a pitcher's ERA is not affected by errors of the defense and I thought maybe there was something in scoring that protected batters stats from errors by the offense.