Rule 6-2-4d-1

I think that there is usually a purpose behind every rule in the book.  Some of them are better than others but nonetheless...  The purpose here is to penalize the batter for not appropriately calling time before stepping out of the box.  His actions lead to all of the negative action in this play and the rule provides us a method of insuring that he gets the picture.  That having been said, let's use some preventative umpiring here and try to keep this situation from happening in the first place.  The rule says "and no timeout has been granted".  My first option here is to recognize that the batter is stepping out of the box and on my own impetus, call time.  Once I do that, there can be no pitch.  The next thing I'm going to do is make sure the batter knows what just happened and that I disapprove of his actions and also let him know that a strike can be called.  Hopefully, that remedies any future situations in the game.  If not, the rule is there for us to use as a penalty and I disagree with the "consensus" that a strike should not be called.  We don't hesitate to call a balk or an illegal pitch against the defense, why would we hesitate to use the rule to enforce a penalty against the offense?