ASA Catcher's Box Violation

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by MD Longhorn

This is kind of a silly question. In baseball, they lead off the base before the pitch... and pitchers can step off the rubber to become a fielder and throw to a base.

In softball, they do not leave the base until the pitch is released. So there's no such thing as throwing to a base.

Then why did they pitch out in this case? I'd assumed this was a version of fast pitch that allowed leading & stealing, and that the purpose of the pitchout was to counter a suicide squeeze. Otherwise pitching out seems a total waste of a pitch.