pinch hitter
8
6.7
- noun
- /pɪnʧ ˈhɪtər/
- Jargon
:
bateador sustituto
- The coach called in a pinch hitter to replace the struggling batter in the last inning.
- pinch hitter who can hit
- send in a pinch hitter
- top pinch hitter
Examples
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For the second straight game, Yankees manager Joe Girardi pulled Alex Rodriguez for a pinch hitter against the right-handed Johnson.
Blog text (21) -
So maybe he will be a great pinch hitter against right-hand pitching.
Blog text (29) -
We're gonna get a pinch-hitter.
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But you know who really gets my respect, is the pinch hitter.
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What a spot for a pinch hitter.
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This would be followed by a walk to pinch hitter Mark Hamilton.
Blog text (18) -
Well, sports fans, the Yankees have put a ten-year-old boy in -as the pinch-hitter.
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Hope he comes back in September and rides out the rest of the season as an occasional pinch hitter.
Blog text (12) -
You're our pinch hitter now.
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The Rays tried to shake things up by sending out two pinch hitters to open the inning.
Blog text (11)
Antonyms
How Permanent
Surface Forms
Morphology
pinch + hitter
The meaning relies on a non-literal sense of 'pinch' (as in 'in a pinch' = in an emergency/if necessary) combined with 'hitter' (batter), so a learner who knows that emergency sense can infer a substitute batter used when needed. However, that sense of 'pinch' is idiomatic and the baseball-specific application is culturally specific, so the compound is not fully predictable from the literal constituents.
Etymology
Pinch hitter comes from baseball, where a player is sent in at the last minute to bat in a very tight situation. The word pinch here means a sudden emergency and hitter is the batter, so the image of someone stepping in quickly explains why it now means 'someone who temporarily takes another person's place'.