Editing Baseball (section)

=== Batting order and substitution ===
[[File:Chris Tillman, Buck Showalter (36615791150).jpg|thumb|A pitcher handing off the ball after being taken out of the game during a [[mound meeting]].]]
An individual player's turn batting or [[plate appearance]] is complete when the player reaches base, hits a home run, makes an out, or hits a ball that results in the team's third out, even if it is recorded against a teammate. On rare occasions, a batter may be at the plate when, without the batter's hitting the ball, a third out is recorded against a teammate—for instance, a runner getting [[caught stealing]] (tagged out attempting to steal a base). A batter with this sort of incomplete plate appearance starts off the team's next turn batting; any balls or strikes recorded against the batter the previous inning are erased.

A runner may circle the bases only once per plate appearance and thus can score at most a single run per batting turn. Once a player has completed a plate appearance, that player may not bat again until the eight other members of the player's team have all taken their turn at bat in the [[batting order (baseball)|batting order]]. The batting order is set before the game begins, and may not be altered except for [[Defensive substitution|substitutions]]. Once a player has been removed for a substitute, that player may not reenter the game. Children's games often have more lenient rules, such as Little League rules, which allow players to be substituted back into the same game.<ref name="League" /><ref>Thurston (2000), p. 100; {{cite web|url=http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules/03_game_preliminaries.pdf|title=Official Rules/3.00—Game Preliminaries (Rule 3.03)|access-date=February 2, 2009| publisher=Major League Baseball| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090205011326/http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules/03_game_preliminaries.pdf|archive-date=February 5, 2009 |url-status=live}} {{cite web| url=http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules//06_the_batter.pdf|title=Official Rules/6.00—The Batter (Rules 6.01, 6.04)|access-date=February 3, 2009|publisher=Major League Baseball|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090205011324/http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules//06_the_batter.pdf|archive-date=February 5, 2009 |url-status=live}}</ref>

If the [[designated hitter]] (DH) rule is in effect, each team has a tenth player whose sole responsibility is to bat (and run). The DH takes the place of another player—almost invariably the pitcher—in the batting order, but does not field. Thus, even with the DH, each team still has a batting order of nine players and a fielding arrangement of nine players.<ref>Porterfield (2007), p. 19; Thurston (2000), p. 153; {{cite web|url=http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules//06_the_batter.pdf|title=Official Rules/6.00—The Batter (Rule 6.10)|access-date=February 3, 2009|publisher=Major League Baseball|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090205011324/http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2008/official_rules//06_the_batter.pdf|archive-date=February 5, 2009|url-status=live}}</ref>