Friday, April 27, 2007

It’s always something

One of the great things about baseball is no matter how many games you watch, there’s always a chance you might see something you’ve never seen before.

Along those lines, we just had a verrrrrry interesting play here at Plainsman Park:

Top of the third, one out, Arkansas’ Logan Forsythe on third base after a double and a wild pitch. Arkansas’ Jeff Nutt swings at a 1-2 pitch from Evan Crawford, but the pitch appears to hit him during his swing. The ball rolls into the infield and Forsythe races home. Since the umpire hasn’t signalled foul ball, Auburn third baseman Joseph Sanders throws to first for the out. The ruling: RBI groundout, which prompts a protest from Tom Slater.

I’ve never seen anything like that.

Apparently —and we’re still waiting for clarification—if the ball hits you during a swing and goes fair, it’s a live ball. Runners can advance and the batter can reach first. Who knew?

UPDATE: During a swing, the hands are part of the ball. The pitch hit Nutt on the hands during a swing and went fair, which makes it a live ball, just as if he’d hit it with his bat. It’s just not something you see very often because those balls usually roll foul and are called foul.

So there you have it. It’s now 5-1, Arkansas. That play probably won’t make it into my game story—especially if Arkansas continues to pull away—but it’s definitely worth mentioning here. Which, come to think of it, is sort of the point of the beloved 5 Cents Blog in the first place.

UPDATE: Top of the fifth, Danny Hamblin hit another home run. And this one was an absolute SMASH. Wow. As soon as it left his bat, everyone in the park knew it was gone. Again, the kid now has 16 homers this year and is second on Arkansas’ career RBI list, and he hits sixth. Not bad.

It’s now 9-1, Arkansas, heading into the top of the sixth. Auburn has three hits, five strikeouts and no walks. Evan Crawford is having a rough Friday—he’s given up nine runs on 10 hits. But he’s come back out to start the sixth…he’s having to take one for the team here. I’m guessing he’ll keep pitching as long as he get the occasional out, no matter how ugly it gets.