Live ball interference

[BobbyJ]

Runners on 2b and 3b with 1 out. Fly ball to short center caught for the 2nd out. Outfielder throws ball towards home plate. Runner is tagging from 3rd. On deck batter is walking onto the field of play (out of the on deck circle) and the thrown ball hits him before the tagging runner crosses home plate. Umps had not called time so ball was considered live.  I assume this is intereference of some type. Is the runner on 3rd called out? Not sure what is done in this instance. Thanks

[grayhawk]

19 minutes ago, BobbyJ said:

Runners on 2b and 3b with 1 out. Fly ball to short center caught for the 2nd out. Outfielder throws ball towards home plate. Runner is tagging from 3rd. On deck batter is walking onto the field of play (out of the on deck circle) and the thrown ball hits him before the tagging runner crosses home plate. Umps had not called time so ball was considered live.  I assume this is intereference of some type. Is the runner on 3rd called out? Not sure what is done in this instance. Thanks

Did he walk in between the center fielder and the plate and got hit before the catcher could receive the throw?

Or was it an errant throw that hit the on deck batter after the ball had passed the catcher?

I'm trying to determine if the on deck batter getting hit actually interfered with a play.

[beerguy55]

As far as R3 is concerned - probably not.  Unless the ODB actually impeded F2's ability to catch the ball AND tag R3, there's probably nothing there.  You can't just blindly penalize the offense for a really SH*#ty throw that happens to hit the On-Deck Batter - you have to make a case that the ODB hindered the defense's ability to make a play on that runner.

However, there is still R2 to think about...logistically, once the ball is thrown offline they're not worried about R3 anymore - but they are worried about R2 advancing...F2 (or F1 covering) is likely trying to retrieve the offline throw...if it hits ODB preventing them from making a play on R2, or letting R2 advance to home, you COULD have INT here, and R2 would be out.   

That's probably still a stretch because R2 is likely at, or very near, third base by the time the ball hits ODB....but if, for example, R2 didn't run to third until he saw the throw offline, you might have a case that the defense had a play to make on him.