“Because it’s awfully tough to cover that pitch unless you do get part of your foot in the inside part of the box,” Candrea said. Slappers are now more vulnerable to outside pitches, and they are seeing more and more of them. She was moved down to ninth in the batting order before an injury to second baseman Reyna Carranco forced her back to the top.Ĭandrea said the new rule has made hitting a challenge for Hughes and the rest of the team’s slappers (whose ability to get on base and/or move runners over is crucial to an Arizona offense that has been inconsistent in conference play).Īnd not just because they can be called out and lose an at-bat over the rule, but also because it makes it increasingly difficult for them to cover the entire plate. Hughes, a member of the All-Pac-12 Second Team last year, has not had the type of senior season she would like. “It just sucks,” Hughes said once more, ”because when you’re in the box you really don’t want to be thinking about your technical stuff.” I don’t really like it, but you’ve got to work with it.” “Now you have to adjust the whole way you move into the box and out of the box. “It’s different,” said UA freshman left fielder Carli Campbell, who is hitting. So it kind of just depends.”Īrizona’s slap-hitters worked during the offseason to adjust to the new rule, doing things like starting their at-bat further from the plate or altering their footwork to ensure they stay inside the box as they swing. Then you get one umpire who looks for it all the time. You can do it 10 times in a row and they won’t say anything. “So obviously you have to worry about it, but it really honestly depends on the umpire. “If you look at my numbers, I’ve been called out of the box a lot of times this year,” Hughes said. That can be as difficult as it sounds, so some umpires hardly ever call batters out for stepping over the line.īut there’s also those who strictly enforce it, so there’s not a whole lot of consistency from game to game. The slappers’ feet are watched by the home-plate umpire who also has to call balls and strikes.
“They’ve almost taken the slapper completely out of the game,” he said. In March, longtime Arizona coach Mike Candrea said it’s hard to play small-ball anymore because of the rule change. “Anything you do one way for your whole life then out of nowhere it just changes, obviously it’s going to affect you a little bit.” “It sucks,” said UA senior Ashleigh Hughes. Arizona coaches and players are not a fan of it.
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