rules/protest

Question
ASA rules apply to our local league. Its a league playoff game, opposing team begins game with 8 players and 1 pick-up. The opposing team is the visiting team and bats around in the 1st (they actually went through either the leadoff man or 2nd hitter in the lineup). When they come to bat in the 2nd, they inform the plate umpire (our league has no scorekeepers, the umpires have the game cards and keep score) that they intend to replace their pick-up and add a 10th player. Question #1 is: is it legal to start the game with 8 + the pick-up, then at this point in the game improve to 10 players?
Now, at this point, our team is unaware they've added replaced the pick-up and added a player. The team in question again gets all the way back through the bottom of the order and has the top of the order bat. However, the "added" player does not bat, despite being added to the card. When they take the field in the bottom of the 2nd, we notice that they now have 10 fielders and there has been, and would be no further trips to the umpire to add/remove/replace players...meaning the "10th" player was added in the top of the inning. So before they bat in the 3rd, it is brought to the attention of the field umpire, who states that if the "10th" player was added he should have batted, but no further action is taken or discussed. Post game discussion with the plate umpire and his explanation is that "he doesn't have a scorekeeper and he can't keep track of whether they should have batted...and that if he didn't, we should have brought it to their attention". We did bring to their attention the situation at the first possible time we could have known, since we were not informed that they had gone from 9 to 10 players. The question is, Can we/should we protest this game?

Answer
Hi Steven,

If I got it right...

basically they started with 9, 1 of whom is not on the roster (this must be a local rule to avoid forfeits) taking an out at 10 and then they subbed in 1 reg team member and added another reg team member.  Instead of batting 9 they are now batting 10.

You didn't catch it when B1 instead of B10 batted after B9.  As soon a a pitch was thrown to B1 they became the legal batter and there is nothing that can be done.

The PU should have reported to your scorer the additions.  Your team should obviously always have a "book" and your scorer should go to the umpire if they see the other manager making subs if the umpire doesn't come to you.

Mark

Sorry I wrote it wrong, typing too quick I guess, I meant to say that as soon as a pitch was thrown to B2, B1 became a legal batter.