USA rules, 2 outs, opposing team has a runner on 3rd, close game.
Opposing team batter hits a pop-up right at the runner who had taken a few steps lead-off of 3rd on the pitch. With 2 outs the runner should have been gone on contact but for whatever reason, the runner just waffled as the ball was coming down on her. Our 3rd basemen ends up doing a little dance to avoid the runner, there is some light contact, but our 3rd basemen ultimately catches the ball. The umpire signals "out", and the half-inning is over.
A quick discussion in our dugout is whether the 3rd out was on the interference, or on the pop-up. If on the interference, we reasoned that the same batter would be at bat the next time the opposing team comes up to bat. We reasoned that the interference is a immediate dead ball and out before the pop-up catch occurred. We favored this scenario, because the batter that popped up was batter number 7, and we might be able to get 3 outs the next time they bat without turning over the order.
Our coach goes out to ask the ump whether the out was on the interference or the catch. The ump says that he saw the interference, and would have called her out on the interference if our 3rd baseman had not caught the ball. We did not pursue/argue with the ump and kept playing.
So the question is, were we right? The runner's interference occurred prior to the batter being put-out, so the batter should have been up again?
Thanks for any insight.
Opposing team batter hits a pop-up right at the runner who had taken a few steps lead-off of 3rd on the pitch. With 2 outs the runner should have been gone on contact but for whatever reason, the runner just waffled as the ball was coming down on her. Our 3rd basemen ends up doing a little dance to avoid the runner, there is some light contact, but our 3rd basemen ultimately catches the ball. The umpire signals "out", and the half-inning is over.
A quick discussion in our dugout is whether the 3rd out was on the interference, or on the pop-up. If on the interference, we reasoned that the same batter would be at bat the next time the opposing team comes up to bat. We reasoned that the interference is a immediate dead ball and out before the pop-up catch occurred. We favored this scenario, because the batter that popped up was batter number 7, and we might be able to get 3 outs the next time they bat without turning over the order.
Our coach goes out to ask the ump whether the out was on the interference or the catch. The ump says that he saw the interference, and would have called her out on the interference if our 3rd baseman had not caught the ball. We did not pursue/argue with the ump and kept playing.
So the question is, were we right? The runner's interference occurred prior to the batter being put-out, so the batter should have been up again?
Thanks for any insight.