Test Your Box Score Acumen

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:05 pm

The following 4 plate appearances occurred to a single player in a single game this week.

1st Inning: Batter grounded out, pitcher to first base.
3rd Inning: Batter struck out swinging, making the 3rd out.
5th Inning: Batter hit a sacrifice fly to left field, runner on 3rd base scored.
7th Inning: Batter popped out to short stop.

In the box score, the Batter went 0-for-3 with 1 RBI. How did the Batter reach base in the game? He did not have any other plate appearances in the game.

Pirates · Post by **Pirates** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:09 pm

Jim that boxscore sounds 100% accurate to me 4 plate appearances, 3 outs 0-3 and 1 sac fly for 1 RBI

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:13 pm

Brewers wrote:Jim that boxscore sounds 100% accurate to me 4 plate appearances, 3 outs 0-3 and 1 sac fly for 1 RBI

I don't think it's a complaint, I think it's a quiz/puzzle...

Dodgers · Post by **Dodgers** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:27 pm

Either the sacrifice fly wasn't caught or the third strike got by the catcher and they reached. I presume the first since you said 3rd out on the K.

Tigers · Post by **Tigers** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:27 pm

My initial inclination would be to say that in his second AB, the third strike was not caught and he reached base, resulting in a strikeout being credited to the pitcher, but not the 3rd out.

However Jim specifies that the strikeout results in him "making the third out", so that couldn't be the case.

So, outside of that I'm going to have to say it was something really odd that I'm not going to think of.

Royals · Post by **Royals** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:39 pm

There's nothing in there saying the batter reached base at all.

Reds · Post by **Reds** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:44 pm

I'd say the AB in the 5th inning that resulted in a SF also involved an error and the batter reached base at that time.

Mets · Post by **Mets** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:44 pm

A sacrifice fly can be credited if the OF makes an error.

This is to ensure that a batter is not penalized for an at bat because of a fielding error.

There for, if the official scorer believes that a reasonable and prudent OF should have made a routine play resulting in a sac fly, but dropped the ball, the batter will still be credited with a sac fly, but reached on a "1-base" error (or 2-base, etc).

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:59 pm

Nationals wrote:I'd say the AB in the 5th inning that resulted in a SF also involved an error and the batter reached base at that time.

In the 5th inning of Wednesday's Dodger-Giant game, Aaron Rowand hit a fly ball to LF that should have been caught. It was raining, but the fielder was charged with an error on a fly ball that would have been just a regular sac fly.

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 4:10 pm

Scrappy play by Rowand. He's a gamer. If any of you haven't yet seen any of the Giants "Gamer" commercials for this year, go find them. They are hilariously sad.

Padres · Post by **Padres** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 7:42 am

Here is the other oddity ... look at Rowand's AVE vs OBP from April 2 (and carried forward). These are his year-to-date numbers courtsey of http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/6742:

Date Opponent AVG OBP SLG OPS
Apr 4 @ MIL .385 .357 .462 .819
Apr 2 @ LAD .400 .364 .400 .764
Apr 1 @ LAD .571 .571 .571 1.143
Mar 31 @ LAD .667 .667 .667 1.333
Total .385 .357 .462 .819