This is splendid. Pitcher who can pitch both ways switches up on a hitter coming to bat — then the batter does same. Rules chaos ensues:

As far as I can discern, the batter is within his rights here to keep switching, and got screwed by the ump’s insistence that he stick to batting righty.

MLB rules state nothing specifically about switch-hitting. They do state (see 6.06) that the batter must remain in the batter’s box once the pitcher takes the ready position — with his foot on the rubber and his body set to pitch.

This means the batter can legally move from one box to another unless the pitcher is in that position. And a pitcher cannot legally change his glove hand once he’s in ready position, or he commits a balk. He therefore must step off the rubber to do so — and when he does so, he’s no longer in ready position, so the batter can then look to see what hand the glove is on and switch sides accordingly.

So it appears this batter got screwed. I wonder if the game was protested.

If you know otherwise, chime in. I feel sorry for the umps in this thing. But they made the wrong call.

I wish he’d gone yard on the guy.