Reply To: unearned run with designated runner

If A is out on C’s fielder’s choice, and B eventually scores to end the game, B’s run would be earned according to how I understand the current rule, since it would be C’s run that would be unearned in the place of A’s. 

I say, and I believe you agree with me, that because B’s run is the first run scored, it ought to be unearned, since he would not have remained in the game except for the presence of A and A’s being put out by a field’s choice. The whole point of the rule is to credit a run scored because of the presence of A as unearned, since the DR was no “fault” of the pitcher’s. 

Now the trouble with what I just said is that we don’t know for sure if, in the absence of A, B would have been put out on C’s fielder’s choice, or if C would have been put out instead. Reconstruction of the inning now isn’t so much what happened, but why it happened, and I don’t think you can assume that. So reconstruction in this case is imperfect and we must do the best we can. I don’t believe the current rule does the best it can.