So when I was strip mining with torches in my offhand (and my pick in my main hand), I tried to place a torch on a redstone ore block, and it simply would not place. All it did was the left clicking/mining animation, even though I was right clicking and light up the ore block. I could easily place the torch on the surrounding stone blocks, and on the ore when the torches were in my main hand, but I just couldn't when it was in my offhand.