Define swing - bunt or strike

[schoony]

If a batter moves the bat into the strike zone without swinging through, is that an attempt to bunt? The batter did not square, but was probably coached to put the bat into the strike zone in an attempt to make contact. I think the coach felt the batter could not make contact swinging at the ball.

As a result, many 3rd strike attempts were fouled off. I felt that these should have been 3rd strike bunt attempts. How is the 'bunt' defined?

[David B]

Originally posted by schoony
If a batter moves the bat into the strike zone without swinging through, is that an attempt to bunt? The batter did not square, but was probably coached to put the bat into the strike zone in an attempt to make contact. I think the coach felt the batter could not make contact swinging at the ball.

As a result, many 3rd strike attempts were fouled off. I felt that these should have been 3rd strike bunt attempts. How is the 'bunt' defined?

If he doesn't square then I would not define simply putting the bat across the plate as a bunt attempt.

FED simply says a bunt is holding the bat in the path of the ball in an attempt to "tap it" into the infield.

Thanks
David

[mbyron]

Rule 2:

A BUNT is a batted ball not swung at, but intentionally met with the bat and tapped slowly within the infield.

On the basis of the phrase "not swung at," I'd be inclined to call what you're describing bunts or attempted bunts, and a fouled bunt attempt is an out. The rule mentions nothing about squaring.

[Thom Coste]

From OBR 2.00:

"A BUNT is a batted ball not swung at, but intentionally met with the bat and tapped slowly within the infield."

The FED definition has more words but says the same thing.

Your batter probably should have been called out on strikes.

[Matthew F]

I have been taught that simply placing the bat across the plate is not a strike, but that any movement of the bat towards the ball would constitute an attempt to make contact and be rewarded with a called strike if no contact was made.

The emphasis taught was, "Did the batter strike at the ball"?

Thoughts?

[mcrowder]

The rule of thumb I teach --- if the barrel of the bat is moving faster than the handle, you have a swing. If not, you have a bunt. I'd have to see the play in question. If the bat was stationary by the time the ball got there (and for a brief period before), I have a bunt attempt.

Like they said above - squaring/not squaring is immaterial.

[schoony]

To further clarify - it was a 10 year old ball game and I had a pretty fast pitcher in the game. I felt for the kid because I could tell he didn't have much skill at the plate and it seemed like he was coached to do this when facing a good pitcher. In the spirit of sportsmanship, I said nothing, but after foul ball number ten (this went on forever....) I started getting frustrated. After that many pitches he had worked the count full and almost got the base-on-balls. My pitcher couldn't believe what he was doing. Finally, he did make contact and the result was a slooooooow roller back to the pitcher.

Thank god my pitcher finally threw a good enough pitch to hit the bat solid.

[mcrowder]

If you had a pretty fast pitcher in, how long could the kid have been holding the bat still? Did he put it out there before the pitch started? With a faster pitcher, this sounds more and more like a very slow swing to me. Especially if the ball actually went forward on the last pitch (imagine a bat held straight out very weakly at the handle - hit it with a fast pitch. The bat's going to be knocked backward and the ball straight down at best --- if that ball rolled forward, I can't imagine that happening without forward motion from the bat.)

Nice aim by your pitcher to hit the bat 10 times, by the way, considering all that space in the strikezone not occupied by bat.

[schoony]

The kid did indeed start the swing (if you call it that) with the bat in the 'loaded' position. He would get it to the hitting zone and just stop - resulting in holding the bat out front of his body (as they do in machine pitch when they are setting up the machine before the game starts).

I was pretty amazed he could do that - stop the bat in the zone and still make contact. The fact that he stopped the bat resulted in him hitting so many foul balls. The bat was stopped and had no momentum to fight the velocity of the pitched ball.

That was part of my original question. I looked at the rule book and I could not see where it defined what a 'swing' was. My thought is that it has something to do with momentum through the hitting zone.

[akalsey]

If he's trying to hit the ball, it's a swing. If he's trying to get a mostly stationary bat into the path of the ball so the ball hits the bat, it's a bunt.

Bat hits ball = swing
Ball hits bat = bunt

At this age, many players will try and adjust the their bat up and down as they swing. It leads to an UGLY swing and can seem like they're trying to stop the bat or even check their swing.

I'd guess that the player you're describing is very inexperienced and lacks confidence at the plate. With a pitcher thowing harder than the batter's used to, he's going to be late on a lot of swings. Pair that with the adjustments he's trying to make and the fact that he likely doesn't follow through with his swing, and you'll have a movement that looks like a swinging bunt.

[DG]

Another good rule of thumb.

Hands apart and bat barely moving forward is a bunt attempt, whether he squared around or not. A lot of guys are being taught not to square these days, especially on bunts for hits instead of sacrifices.