MILWAUKEE (AP) — New York Mets right-hander Carlos Carrasco got a pitch-clock violation before he attempted his first pitch of the game Monday.
The Mets' clock issues continued the rest of the afternoon as they ended up with more violations (four) than hits (three) in a 10-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. Carrasco got two violations, while Omar Narváez and Mark Canha had one each at the plate.
Mets manager Buck Showalter said after the game the clock seemed to have a different pace than it did in their season-opening series at Miami. Showalter said the Mets didn’t adapt well to the change and said he’d be looking at video of each violation to see what went wrong.
“Everybody’s going through an adjustment period,” Showalter said. “It’s umpires. It’s clock operators. It’s us. It’s the teams we’re playing. You’d better figure it out because it’s not going away.”
Showalter wasn't casting any blame Monday. When he was asked about the umpiring, Showalter noted that home plate umpire Alan Porter is one of the best in the game.
Over objections from players, Major League Baseball's 11-man competition committee adopted a pitch clock this year of 15 seconds with no runners on base and 20 seconds with runners. Batters must be in the box and alert to the pitcher with at least eight seconds on the clock. Batters can call time once per plate appearance, stopping the countdown.
There had been 41 pitch-clock violations across MLB in the first 50 games of the season. Of those, 29 were on pitchers, 11 on batters and one on a catcher.
Canha noted a scoreboard issue contributed to his violation, which resulted in a ninth-inning strikeout.
Facing a 2-2 count, Canha looked at the scoreboard in hopes of finding out the velocity of the previous pitch he'd seen. Canha said it took longer than usual for velocities to be recorded on the scoreboard Monday. By the time he stopped waiting and stepped into the batter's box, he received a violation that resulted in his third strike.
“There’s no way that the stadium operations people are going to be linked up with the pitch clock guy,” Canha said. “It’s on me. I’ve got to figure out a way to change. Got to keep the pitch clock on the forefront.”
Carrasco's first violation came when Milwaukee's Christian Yelich was at the plate to lead off the bottom of the first inning. Carrasco took too much time before throwing his pitch and received the violation, giving the leadoff hitter a 1-0 count. Yelich struck out.
Carrasco noted after the game that long innings are more tiring now for pitchers because they don’t have the opportunity to step off the mound due to the pitch clock.
“It’s one of those things,” Carrasco said. “It is what it is right now.”
Brewers manager Craig Counsell said the quicker pace of the game will cause challenges for everyone involved as they adapt to these new rules.
“The umpires are really challenged with it,” Counsell said. “The game has just picked up so much. It's challenging, and it's going to bite people here and there. That's the way it is. You've truly got to be alert to it at all times. It sounds easy to do, but you can understand why it's going to happen.”
Carrasco also had issues with his PitchCom device later in the first inning, leading to a brief stoppage in play.
PitchCom allows catchers to push buttons on wristbands to call for fastballs, curves, changeups and anything else, along with the location. The pitcher can hear the result on an earpiece inside his hat.
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