Batting out of order

[Rich Ives]

Originally Posted by Fritz

J08,your mention of the pitcher reminds of a scenario I have seen every now and then at the youth level (which usually plays some sort of modified OBR). Between innings, one of the other fielders may step on the rubber and pitch a warm-up pitch as a "joke." Twice I have had an opposing coach argue that the "new" pitcher must now pitch to the first batter and the "replaced" pitcher is done.

Both times I told the coach that 1) the ball was never made live, and 2) it would count against the regular pitcher's warmup time/pitches, but that was it.

Neither argued it more than that, though if pushed I was going to say the rules do allow the pitcher to go to another position once per inning and return, and they just did that, in effect. That doesn't address any requirement to pitch to another batter though.

Just wondering if there was another way to handle that.

In LL rules, technically the coaches were correct. In OBR just taking a position on the rubber is enough. It's probably one of those things you "didn't see" though.

In OBR/LL there is no provision (as there is in FED) that the ball be live on an unannounced pitching substitution.

You shouldn't count it against the pitcher's 8 warm-ups. The real pitcher gets 8 pitches or one munute.

In most 12U youth ball a pitcher who leaves pitching cannot return to pitch.