Brice Turang of the Milwaukee Brewers hits a fly ball off a pitch from Ryan Walker of the San Francisco Giants.

The Ball is Hit

The pitch comes in, the batter swings— and they make contact! The ball has been hit. What happens next depends on the type of contact that the batter made, and there are a lot of ways in which you can break that contact down. For our purposes, we will start by talking about the distinction between a fair ball and a foul ball. If the ball is foul, the batter may wind up being put out, and if not, the plate appearance continues. The runners may be able to advance on a foul ball, but only under very specific circumstances. A fair ball, meanwhile, can turn into a hit, which can advance or even score baserunners who are already on, or it can turn into multiple outs (even while also scoring runs), and will always end a plate appearance. In summation, hitting the ball can lead to a lot of things potentially happening.