Thursday’s college baseball matchup between the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Mississippi State Bulldogs featured an extremely controversial call where a hit-by-pitch was overturned into a strike three call.
The play occurred in the second inning with South Carolina at the plate. The Gamecocks had two runners in scoring position with two outs with designated hitter Ethan Petry up to bat.
Mississippi State pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje seemingly hit Petry to load the bases. However, the call was challenged to see if Petry didn’t actively avoid getting hit by the pitch, which results in an automatic strike. After reviewing the play it was determined that Petry didn’t try to avoid the pitch, resulting in strike three to end the inning.
The pitch was a fastball very close to Petry’s head. It certainly looked like he threw his elbow up in fear of being hit in the head and neck region. Considering this, many fans took to social media to blast the umpires for this extremely controversial call.
https://twitter.com/RobGregoryGC/status/1641585431455096832
The rule that was called on this play certainly serves its purpose within college baseball. It is mostly called on pitches where it is obvious that the hitter can get out of the way.
That was certainly not the case in this instance with a fastball up near the face of the hitter. Most hitters probably would have just ducked, but it is hard to fault him for not being able to get away from such a high-speed pitch.
[11Point7 Podcast on Twitter] Photo Credit: SEC Network
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.