If there is a man on third and you hit a deep pop fly and the OF drops the ball do you lose your RBI?

Question

Usually when there is a man on third and less than two outs you can get an RBI by hitting a sacrafice fly ball into the outfield. But what happens if the OF drops the ball. Does the OF get an error and you lose the RBI because of his mistake? The CF could drop the ball on the warning track, easily deep enough to score the runner and you could lose batting average points and an RBI?

Answer 1

Officially, if there's a runner on third with less than two out, in that kind of situation, the batter would be credited with a sacrifice fly and an RBI. The fielder will be credited with an error because it allows the batter, who would normally be out in such a situation, to reach base. However, the batter does not lose the RBI because if the out was recorded as happen much more often than not, he would have been credited with a sacrifice fly.

The baseball rulebook addresses this in section 10.04 (2):

RUNS BATTED IN
10.04
(2) Credit a run batted in for the run scored when, before two are out, an error is made on a play on which a runner from third base ordinarily would score.

Answer 2

Good question. I'd say if it is deep enough that the scorer feels the runner on 3rd would have tagged up and scored you get to keep your RBI. I think though, you will get charged with a time at bat which you would not in the event of the sacrifice fly. Since the object is to hit, get on base and score runs this would not seem like a problem other than the once in 100 years it might be on the last day of the season and the batter loses the batting title over it. Batting titles have been won and lost in strange ways before so baseball would get over it.

Answer 3

this isn't any longer a scouse borrow, the runner stepped forward with the help of tagging up. Any runner could improve, at their own possibility, after a fly ball is touched with the help of a fielder. The runner shouldn't leave the backside till the fielder touches the ball. The runner does not ought to attend till a capture is made, in user-friendly terms a sprint. If the fielder have been to bobble the ball the runner could improve on the 1st touch. If the runner have been to leave the backside till now the fielder touched the ball, the fielder ought to throw it to the backside the runner occupied and the runner could be referred to as out. whilst the runner scores on a tag up play, the batter is credited with a run batted in (RBI) and a sacrifice fly.

Answer 4

No, this would be scored as a sacrifice fly and an error. The batter would be credited with an RBI, and would not be charged with an AB, so his average would be unaffected.

Answer 5

Based on MLB rules, it would be left to the discretion of the umpire because he would have to decide whether or not the runner would have scored by tagging up.