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a) the pointlessness of the balk rule; and
b) unpredictability in how it gets enforced.
The runner would almost certainly have scored some other way, but this is still dumb.
Let's review the logic here: the balk rule exists to prevent pitchers from unduly faking out baserunners, by feinting a move toward the plate and then executing a pickoff. Beyond that, there is no fathomable purpose for the balk rule.
So, when a pitcher eschews working from the stretch (as Lincecum was in this situation, with a runner on third base only; the Giants were in effect conceding the steal-of-home attempt if the Rockies wanted to try it), he has obviously no possible intent, no tangible means, of feinting a move toward the plate and then executing a pickoff.
This particular balk was a result only of confusion on the part of Darling, Molina, and Lincecum as to whether time had been called or not. Lincecum's hesitation in the beginning of his windup (!) was obviously and utterly nothing resembling a feint toward the plate, and provided utterly no utility toward attempting a pickoff of the runner.
While within the strict technical boundaries of the rule, it was a balk (though on the TV replay it was plain that Darling yelled "Time!" and threw his hands up, and then yelled, "That's a balk!", but whatever), all it does is illustrate how purposeless and unnecessarily complicated the rule is in that particular situation.
My proposal: the balk rules don't apply if a pitcher is working from the windup.
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Within the context of the current rules however, Lincecum was allowed to pitch from a windup because he's still not nearly as good from the stretch as from the windup. This poses a greater risk of a balk, particularly from an inexperienced pitcher, as Mike Krukow pointed out on the broadcast. A good reason not to pitch from the windup with a runner on third.
Whatever, a crappy way to lose.
Sure he does. If a pitcher is working from the windup, this encourages the runner to take a large lead. The pitcher can make some type of move which seems to indicate his windup, then as the runner extends with a secondary lead the pitcher then steps off and fires to third.
It makes zero sense to get rid of the balk rule out of the windup.
If you think the balk rule is pointless, lets get rid of it and witness the anarchy that ensues.
Isn't it also so the pitcher doesn't "fake" a pitch to see if the batter's going to bunt?
I dunno. Look back in the previous pages, I guess.
This isn't true. All the pitcher has to do is rock back and throw to third. You don't have to "feint toward the plate". You have to make a motion that indicates you are going to throw home, and any start from the wind up, the rock, hands lifting - there is TONS of "tangible means" to execute a pickoff.
Heck, the pitcher can just pretend to throw the ball. IOr he can break his hands and step off hte rubber with the wrong foot. A balk is much more complex than what you suggest.
But this particular play remains a case in which the rule itself was imposed, without any trace of its spirit present. No one, absolutely no one who witnessed it, not the runner on third or the home plate ump or the Ball Dude down the right field line, interpreted Lincecum's hesitation as a feint or a deke or anything that would inhibit the runner's ability to get a jump.
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