Wild pitch

In baseball, a wild pitch (WP) is charged to a pitcher when a pitch is too high, too low, or too wide of home plate for the catcher to field capably, thereby allowing one or more runners to advance or to score.

Related Topics:
Baseball - Pitcher - Pitch - Home plate - Catcher - Runners

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A wild pitch usually passes the catcher behind home plate, often allowing runners on base easy advancement.

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A closely related statistic is the passed ball. As with many baseball statistics, whether a pitch that gets away from a catcher is a passed ball or wild pitch is at the discretion of the official scorer. The benefit of the doubt is given to the catcher if there is uncertainty; therefore, most of these situations are scored as wild pitches.

Related Topics:
Passed ball - Baseball statistics - Official scorer

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A run that scores because of a wild pitch is counted as an earned run.

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Nolan Ryan is the all-time leader in the category, at 277. Mickey Welch is second (274). After that, a large drop off is present, with the 3rd place Tim Keefe only having 233 all-time wild pitches.

Related Topics:
Nolan Ryan - Mickey Welch - Tim Keefe

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Bill Stemmeyer still holds the single-season record, with 63 in 1886. The single-season record since 1901 is Red Ames with 30 in 1905.

Related Topics:
Bill Stemmeyer - 1886 - 1901 - Red Ames - 1905

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