ANOTHER THREE-BALL BASE ON BALLS!

ANOTHER THREE-BALL BASE ON BALLS! When I began posting about everybody in a major league baseball game losing track of the pitch count, I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of occurrence. I posted here when it happened to Seattle on July 2. Now, only 8 days later, it happened again, and again it happened to Seattle. And I had missed it, but this article points out that two weeks ago a Texas Ranger batter didn’t go to first base on ball 4 and struck out on the next pitch. What makes this more surprising is that the pitch count—whether the batter or the pitcher has the advantage—should affect the kind of pitch and location that the catcher chooses to call and the positioning of the defense.