Illegal pitch or no pitch.

[chapmaja]

Originally Posted by MD Longhorn

When the IP is not releasing the ball when it appears you are going to (as in the OP) ... then the IP DEFINITELY caused the runner to leave early ... had the pitcher not IP'd, the runner would not have LE'd.

(IF the IP was something else... say, a 24" violation, and the runner left before the pitch - you would have LE, dead ball, no IP (as the ball was dead before the violation)).

In this case, I felt it was very close to the time the pitcher would have released the pitch.

I actually had this situation in a MS game last year, as a single umpire. In that case, the pitcher stumbled and failed to release the ball. No IP was called however because as the pitcher stumbled I saw that the runner on second was about 5 strides off second base. That one was obvious that the runner left early, and that was penalized, so the IP never happened. When I made the call, the head coach just smiled at me because he knew it was the right call. Unfortunately those MS are not much better than slow pitch games on a rough poor maintained MS field.