Wild Pitches, Passed Balls and Stolen Bases: How Scorers Assign Responsibility
How official scorers decide whether a runner's advance is a wild pitch, a passed ball or a stolen base, with the rule tests, worked examples and the effect on pitcher and catcher records.
Every time a runner moves up a base without a hit, the official scorer has to answer one question: whose fault, or whose credit, was it? If the pitcher threw a ball that no catcher could be expected to handle, the pitcher is charged with a wild pitch. If the catcher should have handled the pitch and did not, he is charged with a passed ball. If neither of those happened and the runner simply beat the throw, the runner is credited with a stolen base.
The three entries look similar in a box score, but they are different judgments with different consequences. A wild pitch goes on the pitcher's record and can add to his earned runs. A passed ball goes on the catcher's. A stolen base goes on the runner's, and it counts in his favor. The difference between them is one of ordinary effort, and ordinary effort is a matter of scorer judgment, which is why fans argue about these calls even though the rules are short.
This article lays out the tests the scoring rules use, works through the usual situations one at a time, and explains how each entry changes what you read in a box score or a scoresheet. Rule numbers and some details vary slightly between editions of the Official Baseball Rules, so for a ruling in a specific game, check the current rule text at mlb.com.
The question the scorer is asking
A runner advances on a pitch. The scorer's job is to name the cause. There are four possible causes in this family of plays: the pitcher (wild pitch), the catcher (passed ball), the runner (stolen base), or the defense generally (an error, a defensive indifference ruling, or a fielder's choice). Each of those has its own test.
The shortest summary is a sequence of questions. Did the runner advance because the ball got away from the catcher? If so, was the pitch one a catcher with ordinary effort could have handled? If it could not, wild pitch. If it could, passed ball. If the ball did not get away and the runner advanced on his own speed and timing, it is a steal, unless the defense made no effort to stop him.
That sequence explains most box scores. What it leaves out is the idea that gives the whole system its shape: the scorer decides the cause of the advance, not just the fact of it, and every cause has a different party who gets the mark.
What a wild pitch is
A wild pitch is charged to the pitcher when a pitch is so high, so low or so wide of the plate that the catcher cannot stop it or control it with ordinary effort, and as a result a runner or runners advance. The test has two parts: the pitch must have been beyond what the catcher could handle with ordinary effort, and a runner must actually have moved because of it.
The second part matters. A pitch in the dirt that bounces away does not create a wild pitch unless somebody advances. If the bases are empty, nothing is charged, and the play shows up in no statistic. If a runner on first moves to second because a pitch skipped past, the wild pitch is charged. If a runner on third scores on one, the wild pitch is charged and the run is attributed to the pitcher in the usual way.
Wild pitches fall into familiar types: a curveball bounced in front of the plate, a fastball sailing over the catcher's head, a pitch thrown far off the plate that the catcher cannot reach. A pitcher with a violent breaking ball or a knuckleball will tend to have more of them, but the rule does not care about the pitch type, only about whether ordinary effort would have stopped it.
What a passed ball is
A passed ball is the catcher's equivalent. It is charged when the catcher fails to hold or handle a pitch that he should have handled with ordinary effort, and as a result a runner advances. The pitch is catchable, it gets past or away from him, and a runner moves up.
The usual cases are a fastball that tips off the glove, a breaking ball that hits the heel of the mitt and rolls away, and a pitch that is clearly in the strike zone or close to it and goes to the backstop. Knuckleballs are widely seen as the pitch that produces the most passed balls, because their movement is hard to predict. The rule makes no exception for that: the question is still whether the catcher should have handled the pitch with ordinary effort.
A passed ball is not an error. The catcher is not charged with a fielding error on the play, and it does not appear in his fielding percentage. It is recorded separately in his statistics.
The gray area: ordinary effort
The phrase ordinary effort does most of the work in both definitions, and it is a judgment call. A catcher is expected to block or stop a ball in the dirt if he can reach it, and the scorer asks whether an average major-league catcher would have stopped it. The pitch that bounces ten feet in front of the plate and takes a hard hop to the side is different from the pitch that is only a few inches off the ground and lands in his gear.
In practice scorers weigh several things. How far from the catcher did the ball go? Did he move to stop it, or did he fail to react? Was the pitch within the zone or near it, or was it well outside? Was there a reasonable chance for a skilled catcher to block it? If the answer to the last question is no, the pitcher gets the wild pitch. If the answer is yes, the catcher gets the passed ball.
The following table shows the typical rulings.
| Situation | Typical ruling | Charged to |
|---|---|---|
| Curveball bounces in front of the plate, skips past the catcher, runner takes second | Wild pitch | Pitcher |
| Fastball over the plate hits the catcher's glove and rolls away, runner advances | Passed ball | Catcher |
| Pitch sails over the catcher's head, runner on third scores | Wild pitch | Pitcher |
| Catcher catches the pitch cleanly, throws late to second | Stolen base | Runner credited |
| Catcher makes a good block, runner takes the base before the ball can be thrown | Stolen base | Runner credited |
| Ball gets away from the catcher, runner on first moves up, no throw made | Wild pitch or passed ball by the test above | Pitcher or catcher |
The last row hints at a subtlety. A runner who breaks on the pitch and gets to the next base only because the ball got away has not stolen anything: the scoring rule lists passed balls and wild pitches among the things a stolen base must be unaided by. If he would have beaten the throw anyway, the steal stands, and a wild pitch or passed ball is charged only for any extra base he takes. Telling those two cases apart is a judgment call.
What counts as a stolen base
A stolen base is credited to a runner who advances one base unaided by a base hit, a putout, an error, a force-out, a fielder's choice, a passed ball, a wild pitch or a balk. That list is the heart of the rule. A runner earns the credit only if nobody else caused the advance.
The base need not be second. A runner on second can steal third, and a runner on third can steal home, though steals of home are rare. The runner does not need to be running on the pitch, but in practice almost all steals begin with the pitch or with a break just after the pitcher's move.
Stolen bases appear in the box score under the runner's name, usually as SB with CS beside it for the times he was caught. Our guide to how to read a box score shows where to find them.
When a steal is not a steal
Not every advance on the bases is a steal, even when the runner was running. The scoring rules say that the scorer should not credit a stolen base in these situations.
- The ball got away. If the runner advances because of a wild pitch or passed ball, the play is scored as such, and the runner gets no steal.
- The throw was not in time because of an error. If the runner would have been safe anyway, he gets the steal and the fielder gets an error for any extra base the runner takes. If the runner would have been out but for the error, the scorer charges him with caught stealing and the fielder with an error.
- The defense was indifferent. If the defense makes no attempt to throw out a runner, and the scorer judges that the defense did not care, no steal is credited and the play is scored as a fielder's choice. The ruling is called defensive indifference, and the scorer considers the score, the inning and whether the runner's advance mattered. A runner who moves from first to second in the ninth inning with his team trailing by several runs, while the catcher stays crouched, is an example.
- A fielder's choice or a hit helped. If the defense tries to put out another runner instead, and the first runner advances as a result, the play is a fielder's choice.
The line between a steal and a fielder's choice is the most argued of the four. On a double steal, with runners on first and third, a catcher who throws to second while the runner on third scores gives the scorer a judgment to make: whether the defense was making a real play on a runner and let the other advance, or whether both runners simply beat the defense. The answer decides who gets the credit.
Caught stealing
Caught stealing is the opposite entry. A runner is charged with caught stealing when he is out, or would have been out except for an error, while trying to advance on his own. It also applies when the runner overslides the base and is tagged out. It is recorded for the runner and, for the defense, as a putout and assist.
A pickoff is a different play. A runner who is thrown out at first because the pitcher caught him leaning, when he was not trying to steal, is picked off, which is not the same as caught stealing.
Caught stealing has been an official statistic in different forms across the years, and older seasons are not always complete. For modern seasons you can read stolen bases and caught stealing together to compute a success rate. A common rule of thumb in analytics is that a runner needs to succeed in roughly 70 to 75 percent of attempts for stealing to help the offense, because a caught runner costs an out as well as a base, though the break-even point depends on the run environment and the base-out situation.
The strikeout that is not an out
The oddest case is the third strike that the catcher does not hold. If the third strike gets away from the catcher, and first base is empty or there are two outs, the batter can run to first base. The pitcher is credited with a strikeout either way. If the catcher should have held the pitch, he is charged with a passed ball. If the pitch was out of reach, the pitcher is charged with a wild pitch. In both cases the batter reaches first, and he is not charged with reaching on an error.
This is why a pitcher can record a strikeout and still have the batter on base, and why four strikeouts in a single inning are possible. It is also a good reason to read the scorebook symbols, not the narrative: the K for the strikeout goes in the batter's box, and the WP or PB goes in the notes. Our scoresheet tool lets you practice entering these plays.
What the entries do to the record
The three entries affect a pitcher's and catcher's records differently, and the earned run rules are where it matters. A run that scores on a wild pitch is charged to the pitcher in the ordinary way, and a wild pitch does not make the run unearned. A passed ball is treated differently: when the scorer reconstructs the inning to decide which runs are earned, passed balls are treated like errors, so a run that would not have scored without a passed ball can be unearned. The detail is covered in our article on earned and unearned runs, and the related question of what is an error and what is a hit is in how official scorers decide between a hit and an error.
Wild pitches also appear in a pitcher's statistics as a count, and passed balls appear in the catcher's, usually next to his fielding percentage. A stolen base is part of the runner's batting line and the team's running statistics, and caught stealing goes with it.
A few consequences are worth keeping in mind.
- A pitcher with a lot of wild pitches is not necessarily a wild pitcher. High-movement pitches produce more of them, and so does a high number of men on base.
- A catcher's passed ball total depends heavily on the staff he catches. A knuckleballer on the staff can raise the number sharply.
- A runner's stolen base total depends on the defense's willingness to throw. In a lopsided game, late runners can take bases that the scorer will not credit.
Rule changes and what has stayed the same
The scoring rules for these plays have changed little in decades, but the game around them has. Beginning in the 2023 season, major-league baseball introduced larger bases, limits on how often a pitcher may step off or throw over to a base, and a pitch clock. These changes made stolen bases easier and more frequent, and they changed the volume of the entries, not their definitions. The test is still whether the runner advanced without the help of a wild pitch, a passed ball or a defensive mistake. Check the current Official Baseball Rules at mlb.com for the rule text as of the most recent season.
Common questions
Can a pitcher be charged with a wild pitch with the bases empty? No. The scoring rule requires that a runner advance as a result of the pitch. With the bases empty, there is no one to advance, so nothing is recorded, though a batter who reaches on a dropped third strike counts as an advance.
Is a passed ball an error? No. It is a separate statistic charged to the catcher and not counted as a fielding error.
Can a runner steal a base on a wild pitch? Not if the wild pitch is what moved him. The scorer credits the advance to the wild pitch, and the runner gets no stolen base for it, although a runner who was going anyway and would have beaten the throw keeps the steal.
Who decides? The official scorer, who is appointed for each game and applies the rules above. Most of the judgment lies in ordinary effort and in defensive indifference.
What is the difference between defensive indifference and a stolen base? In a steal, the defense tried to stop the runner and failed. In defensive indifference, the defense did not try, and the scorer does not credit a steal.
Where to go next
To practice the scoring rules, use the scoresheet tool, and to compute a stolen base success rate, try the stat calculator. For the pitching side of the record, the save rule, the hold and the win covers the other decisions scorers make, and what counts as a no-hitter or a perfect game covers how a scorer's rulings can decide a historic game.