What Is the Infield Fly Rule? I Counted All 2,661 MLB Infield Flies Since 2016

The infield fly rule says the batter is automatically out on an easy pop-up when there are runners on first and second (or the bases are loaded) and fewer than two outs. The umpire calls it while the ball is still in the air. It doesn't matter if the fielder catches it, drops it or lets it fall on purpose. The batter is out, and the runners don't have to run.

The whole point is to stop the defense from dropping a pop-up on purpose to turn a cheap double play. And it works. I went through MLB's official play-by-play for every regular-season game from 2016 through 2026, all 25,193 of them, and found 2,661 infield fly calls. That's about one every nine or ten games. On 2,646 of those plays, every runner stayed where he was.

I played baseball growing up, and Steve coached baseball as an adult, including some of my teams. This is one of those rules everybody has heard of and not that many people can explain. So here's the rule, why it exists, what the runners should do, and what 11 seasons of data say about it.

The Infield Fly Rule in Plain English

The rule lives in the "Definitions of Terms" section of the 2026 Official Baseball Rules, and Rule 5.09(a)(5) says the batter is out when "an Infield Fly is declared." For the umpire to call it, four things have to be true:

• Runners on first and second, or the bases loaded. Runners on first and third doesn't count, and neither does a runner on first by himself.

• Fewer than two outs. With two outs, the defense only needs one out anyway, so there's nothing to protect.

• A fair fly ball that isn't a line drive or an attempted bunt. It has to be a pop-up or a regular fly.

• An infielder could catch it with "ordinary effort." This is the judgment part.

That last one trips people up, because "infield" in the name doesn't mean the ball has to come down on the dirt. The rulebook says the umpire should judge whether an infielder could have handled the ball, "not by some arbitrary limitation such as the grass, or the base lines." The pitcher and catcher count as infielders, and so does any outfielder who comes in and sets up in the infield on the play. A pop-up into shallow left field can be an infield fly. A pop-up that an outfielder catches can be one too.

A few more details from the rulebook:

• "Infield fly, if fair." If the ball is near the foul line, the umpire says this. If it ends up foul, it's just a foul ball. If it falls untouched outside the baseline and bounces fair before passing first or third base, it's an infield fly.

• The ball is live. Runners can advance "at the risk of the ball being caught," the same as on any fly ball.

• It isn't an appeal play. The umpire's judgment governs, and the call is supposed to be made immediately.

Little League uses the same definition. Its rule explainer quotes Rule 2.00 almost word for word and boils it down to the same four checks.

Why the Rule Exists

Picture the bases loaded with one out and a high pop-up to the shortstop. Every runner has to stay close to his base, because if the ball is caught, they have to tag up. Now say the shortstop lets it drop. Suddenly every runner is forced to run, and they're all standing on the bag. He picks up the ball and gets a force out, then throws for another one. That's a double play on a ball the batter popped up three stories in the air, and maybe a triple play.

With only a runner on first, a drop mostly just trades one out for another, because the batter is already running to first. Put runners on first and second, and both of them are stuck near their bases, so a drop can get two outs. That's why the rule starts there. And with two outs, the defense only needs one more, so there's nothing to take away.

The infield fly rule takes the trick away by taking the force away. Once the umpire calls it, the batter is out, so nobody is forced to run. The runners can stay put whether the ball is caught or not.

There's a second rule that people mix up with it. Rule 5.09(a)(12) covers an infielder who intentionally drops a fair fly ball or line drive with a runner on first and fewer than two outs.

That last row matters. Under the intentional drop rule, the batter is not out if the infielder lets the ball fall to the ground without touching it. The approved ruling under 5.09(a)(12) spells that out, "except when the Infield Fly rule applies." The infield fly rule is the one that covers the ball nobody touches.

What the Runners Should Do

Steve coached baseball, and if you're coaching, this is the part of the rule your runners actually have to know. The infield fly call protects the runners, but it doesn't freeze the play.

• If the ball is caught, treat it like any caught fly ball. Tag up before you advance.

• If the ball drops, you don't have to tag up and you don't have to run. You can stay on your base, or you can take off at your own risk. The ball is live.

• If you get hit by the ball while you're standing on your base, you're not out, but the batter still is (Rule 5.09(b)(7)). If you're off the base when it hits you, you and the batter are both out, as long as the ball hadn't already gone by an infielder.

The mistake to avoid is a runner who hears "infield fly," sees the ball hit the ground, and thinks he's forced to the next base. He isn't. If he runs and gets tagged, he's out.

The scorebook part is simple, too. When an infield fly isn't caught, Rule 9.09(c)(1) says the official scorer gives the putout to the fielder who could have made the catch. So even a dropped infield fly goes down as a putout, like any other pop-up.

How Often MLB Umpires Call the Infield Fly Rule

MLB's play-by-play adds "on the infield fly rule" to the description of these plays. I pulled the play-by-play for every regular-season game from 2016 through 2026 from the MLB Stats API and counted those plays. I threw out four where the data shows a base or out situation where the rule couldn't apply, which left 2,661.

The 2026 season had the most of any year in this stretch, with 299, and the 2020 season was only 60 games per team. I can't tell you why the number has crept up from about 9 per 100 games in 2016 to about 12 per 100 in 2026. The play-by-play shows that it happened, not why.

The postseason works the same way. From the 2016 postseason through the 2026 League Championship Series, I found 53 infield fly calls in 439 playoff games, including nine in the World Series.

Where Infield Flies Actually Come Down

Here's who got credit for the out on all 2,661 regular-season infield flies.

The middle infielders take almost two-thirds of them, which makes sense to me, since they cover the most ground in the infield.

The 20 outfielder plays are the rule's "ordinary effort" language at work. Most recently, in Game 4 of the 2026 National League Division Series on October 7, 2026, the Brewers' Cooper Pratt popped up to Padres right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr., and the play-by-play logs it "on the infield fly rule." Milwaukee won that game 3-1 to close out the series.

The base-out situations break down like this:

Two of every three came with one out. One small quirk: the rule doesn't cover line drives or bunts, but 10 of the 2,661 are logged as lineouts and two as bunt pop-outs. The umpire's call and the play-by-play's description of the batted ball don't always agree.

The 15 Times Something Else Happened

This is the stat I like best. On 2,646 of the 2,661 regular-season infield flies, no runner moved and nobody else was put out. That's 99.4%. The rule did exactly what it was built to do.

On the other 15, a runner moved up on the play. Three times, a run scored. On April 12, 2026, at Wrigley Field, Alex Bregman popped up to Pirates second baseman Brandon Lowe with the bases loaded and one out in the seventh, and Dansby Swanson came home. The Cubs won 7-6. Four of the 15 involved an error, like a missed catch by Rangers catcher Robinson Chirinos on an Albert Pujols pop-up in Anaheim on August 22, 2017.

And once in 11 seasons, a runner was put out on an infield fly play. On June 9, 2025, at Fenway Park, the Rays had runners on first and second with nobody out when Junior Caminero popped up to Red Sox third baseman Marcelo Mayer. Yandy Díaz went to third, and Jonathan Aranda was thrown out at second, from catcher Connor Wong to shortstop Trevor Story to second baseman Kristian Campbell. That's the risk the rulebook warns about. The ball is live, and if you run, you can be put out. Tampa Bay still won, 10-8.

The Most Famous Infield Fly: The 2012 Wild Card Game

If you've heard of this rule because of one play, it's probably this one.

On October 5, 2012, in the National League Wild Card Game, the Braves trailed the Cardinals by three runs with runners on first and second and one out in the bottom of the eighth. Andrelton Simmons hit a fly ball to shallow left. Cardinals shortstop Pete Kozma went out after it, then peeled away at the last second, and the ball fell between him and left fielder Matt Holliday. The crowd at Turner Field thought it was bases loaded with one out.

It wasn't. Left field umpire Sam Holbrook had called an infield fly, so Simmons was out. According to MLB.com, Kozma was about 90 feet onto the outfield grass when the ball dropped. Fans threw bottles and cups onto the field, and the game was delayed 19 minutes.

Holbrook explained it in the postgame news conference: "I saw the shortstop go back and get underneath the ball where he would have had ordinary effort and would have caught the baseball, and that's why I called the infield fly." Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez protested the game. MLB executive Joe Torre denied the protest that night, saying it couldn't be upheld because the call was the umpire's judgment, and the Braves then dropped it. St. Louis won 6-3.

MLB's own play-by-play for that game logs it the same way as every other one: "Andrelton Simmons pops out to shortstop Pete Kozma on the infield fly rule."

Where the Rule Came From

The rule is older than the modern game. According to SABR researcher Richard Hershberger's "Revisiting the Origin of the Infield Fly Rule", the National League first added it in 1894. That first version was written carelessly. It only mentioned first base being occupied with one out. The 1895 rules required runners on first and second, and it wasn't until 1901 that the rule applied with fewer than two outs, the way it does now.

The problem itself goes back further. Hershberger points to a May 13, 1872 game between Troy and the Athletics in which Troy shortstop Davy Force dropped a pop-up on purpose with the bases loaded to try for a double play. The umpire, Nicholas Young, ruled it a catch anyway.

The rule even has its own spot in legal history. In 1975, Penn law student William S. Stevens anonymously published "The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule" in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. It's a parody of law-review writing with a real point about how rules grow over time, and according to Stevens' 2008 obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer, it even had a footnote on its first word, "the."

Quick Answers

What is the infield fly rule? It's a rule that makes the batter automatically out on a fair fly ball that an infielder could catch with ordinary effort, when there are runners on first and second or the bases are loaded and fewer than two outs. Line drives and bunts don't count. The umpire calls it while the ball is in the air.

Why does the infield fly rule exist? To stop the defense from letting an easy pop-up drop on purpose so it can force out runners who had to stay near their bases. Calling the batter out removes the force, so the runners can stay put.

Does the infield fly rule apply with two outs? No. It only applies with no outs or one out. With two outs, the defense only needs one more out, so there's no double play to take away.

Can runners advance on an infield fly? Yes, at their own risk. The ball is live. If it's caught, runners have to tag up first. If it drops, they don't have to tag up, but they can be put out if they run.

Can an outfielder catch an infield fly? Yes. The umpire judges whether an infielder could have caught the ball with ordinary effort, not where it lands. From 2016 through 2026, outfielders were credited with 20 of the 2,661 MLB regular-season infield flies.

How often is the infield fly rule called in MLB? About once every nine or ten games. I counted 2,661 in 25,193 regular-season games from 2016 through 2026, including 299 in the 2026 season.

Final Thoughts

The infield fly rule sounds complicated, but it comes down to this: runners on first and second, fewer than two outs, an easy pop-up, and the batter is out no matter what. It exists so a defense can't turn a pop-up into a double play by dropping it. In the 2026 season, MLB umpires called it 299 times, and on almost every one of them the runners stayed right where they were.

How I got the numbers: I used MLB's public Stats API play-by-play for every final regular-season and postseason game from 2016 through October 19, 2026, and counted plays whose official description includes "on the infield fly rule." For the base-out table, I rebuilt who was on base before each play from the same data, and dropped the four plays that didn't fit the rule. As a cross-check, Retrosheet's event files for 2016 have 226 plays marked as infield flies against my 227. Retrosheet's infield fly tag is incomplete in later seasons, so I didn't use it beyond 2016. (The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at www.retrosheet.org.)

If you want more baseball rules and numbers, here's how many innings are in a baseball game, how long a baseball game lasts and how the MLB playoffs work. For the people making the call, I looked at how much MLB umpires make. And if you like rules explainers with data, I did the same thing for a safety in football and icing in hockey.

Sources:

• MLB: 2026 Official Baseball Rules

• MLB Stats API: game play-by-play

• MLB.com: Infield fly ruling disrupts Cardinals-Braves Wild Card Game

• ASAP Sports: 2012 NL Wild Card Game news conference with Sam Holbrook and Joe Torre

• Little League: What is the Infield Fly Rule?

• SABR: Revisiting the Origin of the Infield Fly Rule

• University of Pennsylvania Law Review: The Common Law Origins of the Infield Fly Rule

• Philadelphia Inquirer: William S. Stevens, 60, lawyer, noted author

• Retrosheet: event files