Today's new thing

My partner and I were watching the Cubs-Rangers game today.  In the bottom of the second inning, Luis Valbuena swung at and missed a fast ball from Alexi Ogando, which moved way inside and ended up actually hitting him in the knee.  To our astonishment, he was not awarded first base.  It was called strike two.

According to Rule 6.08b of the official MLB rules, a hit batter gets to go to first if he is "touched by a pitched ball which he is not attempting to hit."  In other words, if he does not swing at it.

I never knew that.  I knew the batter was supposed to try to get out of the way, which most players don't do very convincingly, but I never heard of that bit about not trying to hit the ball that hits you.

Neither had my partner, and we agreed that that was undoubtedly because we had never seen it happen before.  And we're talking about well over 100 years' worth of watching baseball between us.

So, we learned something today, and saw something that is obviously  quite rare.   And, Valbuena went on to hit a single into right field that scored the runner on third, who would not have come home if Valbuena had been given the free base.

Something for everyone.  That's Cubs baseball for ya.