MILWAUKEE — The noise around the pitch clock died down after a few weeks into spring training, but with the regular season now underway it’s become a topic of conversation once again.
It’s clear there is a learning curve for all involved. The Mets had four pitch clock violations Monday in the series opener against the Milwaukee Brewers, two by pitcher Carlos Carrasco and one each by hitters Mark Canha and Omar Narvaez. Four isn’t exactly a small number and the Mets are looking closely at what happened in order to learn from the timing moving forward.
“I think everybody is going through some adjustment periods,” manager Buck Showalter said. “It’s umpires, it’s clock operators, it’s us, it’s other teams we’re playing but you better figure it out because it’s not going away.”
Carrasco was charged with a ball before even throwing his first pitch of the day in his Monday start in Milwaukee. It affected the rest of his outing, with the violation in the back of his mind. When he struggled to get the third out in the fourth inning and get the first in the fifth, he had to labor. The game keeps moving with the pitch clock and without the ability to take any meaningful break, the cardio of pitchers is tested.
Canha was called out on strikes on a pitch clock violation in the ninth. Canha has always been somewhat of a slow worker, to begin with, but he worked to adjust to the pace during spring training. The problem he encountered Monday was that the velocity on the scoreboard wasn’t coming up right away. Bryse Wilson threw him a pitch he didn’t recognize and Canha wanted to get a read on the velocity to try and figure out what pitches he was throwing.
But he lost track of time waiting for the radar gun and was too late getting set in the batter’s box. He was ready with six seconds left on the clock and hitters have to be ready with eight seconds remaining.
“A pitch would be thrown and it would be like way longer than we’re used to all day,” Canha said. “I think I even commented because I was frustrated after the at-bat and Luis walked after me, a couple batters after me maybe, and he got to first and they posted the velocity when he arrived at first base.”
For the record, the pitch was a slider.
“I’ve got to get in the box and not worry,” Canha said. “There’s no way that the stadium operations people are going to be linked up with the pitch clock guy, so it’s on me. I’ve got to figure out a way to change. Sometimes I’ve got to keep the pitch clock in the forefront.”
Showalter said the pace felt quicker than it did in Miami over the weekend when the Mets played the Marlins. He didn’t want to place blame anywhere other than on his own team, but the manager thinks there are some growing pains for everyone to work out. Over the weekend, Jeff McNeil received a violation after Pete Alonso was slow to get back to first base after a foul ball. The league apologized to the Mets, saying it was an incorrect call. Showalter thinks one of the violations on Monday occurred when the groundskeepers didn’t get off the field in time.
“We’re going to look at it,” Showalter said. “There are so many things you have to deal with, like the ground crew getting off on time. I think we got one violation because they were waiting on the ground crew to get off the field and the clock didn’t stop. There’s a reason for each one of them when you ask them, so it’s something you have to adjust to and we will.”
Max Scherzer has been an ardent supporter of using a pitch timer but he doesn’t think the clock needs to be on for every batter. What Scherzer would like to see is people playing with pace and the umpires using it more as a way to enforce the pace and prevent it from getting slow.
“I love the pace, I don’t like the clock,” Scherzer said over the weekend in Miami. “I’ll double down on that. I think the umpires should have discretion and turn the clock off.”
Overall, it’s tough to argue with the results of the new rules. Game times are down, the offense is up and there is more action on the basepaths.
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