PEORIA, Ariz. — Scott Servais began his postgame interview session after the Mariners’ spring training opener Friday with a succinct statement.
Make that an understatement.
“There’s a difference,’’ he said.
The Mariners and Padres had the distinction of playing the very first game (concurrent with Royals vs. Rangers in Surprise, Arizona) under the new rules that baseball is implementing this season. And after the 3-2 Mariners’ victory in two hours and 29 minutes — a veritable whirlwind for a typically sloppy spring training game — I’m here to confirm Servais’ front-line assessment.
It’s very, very different. And that’s very, very good.
With the new pitch clock — one located next to the batting eye in center field for the batter to see, and two behind home plate in the pitcher’s field of vision — acting as a silent sentry, the action was crisp and steady. No incessant adjusting of batting gloves. No time-killing strolls around the mound between pitches. No stepping out just for the heck of it.
Rather, just a constant flow of what people come to their seats or television sets to see: The confluence of action that can only begin when the pitcher and batter engage each other.
There were other rule changes rolled out for their first test drive Friday. The bigger bases. The new pickoff guidelines. The ban on shifting that requires teams to position two players on either side of first base.
But I think it’s clear that the pitch clock will have the most dramatic impact on the way the game is played. Pitchers have 15 seconds to throw a pitch with the bases empty, 20 seconds with runners on. Hitters must be in the batter’s box, engaged, with 8 seconds left on the clock. Pitchers’ violations result in an automatic ball, batters’ violations an automatic strike (spoiler alert: This game featured the first such penalty in major league history, exhibition category).
In the Mariners’ clubhouse afterward, I heard Kolten Wong and Julio Rodriguez extolling the virtues of the new rule. Rodriguez said it forced him to stay locked in a mental “zone” throughout his at-bat. Wong especially liked the no-nonsense nature of it.
“Yeah, definitely a quicker pace and whatnot,” Wong said. “But it was cool, man. I have no problem with it. It kind of cuts all the nonsense of ‘Look at me.’ That kind of standing around. No one really wants to just look at one guy. We want to see the game going, the game progressing and moving. So no problem with it.”
While some veteran players like Manny Machado (more on him later) have expressed trepidation about having to alter their ingrained routines, the consensus from Mariners players seemed to be largely positive.
“I think it’s fantastic,’’ Mariners catcher Tom Murphy said. “I think it’s fantastic for players and I think it’s fantastic for fans. I really do.”
Murphy had a close-up view in the bottom of the first inning when Machado, at 1:21 p.m. Arizona time (that’s for the historians) was called for a time-clock violation by home-plate umpire Ryan Blakney. Machado wasn’t fully engaged in the batter’s box at 8 seconds, so Mariners’ pitcher Robbie Ray was gifted the least difficult 0-1 count of his career.
“I didn’t have to really work for it,’’ Ray said. “I could actually hear the ump being like, ‘Hey, you need to hurry up … hurry up.’ So it was pretty interesting.”
“I might be 0-1 down a lot this year,” Machado told reporters after the game. “It is super fast. Right on 8 seconds, you’ve got to be ready looking at the pitcher. Right there, I was looking up. [The umpire] was like you got two seconds.’’
Murphy said Machado had a good laugh over it in the batter’s box — “but I would assume if it was the regular season, it might be a different laugh.”
Indeed, that’s why they are rolling out these new rules now, so players and teams have a chance to work out the kinks in games that don’t matter. Besides adjusting to the faster pace of the pitch-clock era, some teams will no-doubt push the envelope in trying to manipulate the shift rules, and experiment with various strategies to deal with the pickoff limitations.
Former Mariner Raul Ibanez, now senior vice president of on-field operations for MLB, predicted in a Zoom call with the Seattle media Thursday that players will adjust. Speaking specifically of the pitch clock, Ibanez said:
“What we found in the minor leagues is it was about a month of acclamation, which is why we want to roll them out and enforce them strictly in spring training … but at around the four-week mark, there’s virtually less than one violation per game. Hopefully by the first week of the season, everybody’s ready to rock ‘n’ roll.”
That feeling was seconded by Mariners’ first baseman Ty France, who said, “I do think there’s a handful of guys in the league that it will affect, but I also think it’s one of those things where it’ll take a week and then guys will get used to it.”
Ibanez said the cumulative goal of all the rule changes is not just for quicker games, but more action in those games. That was the case in the minor leagues, where the new rules were tested. Not only were the games reduced by an average of 25 minutes in 2022, but offensive production and stolen bases went up.
“At the end of the day, the game was shorter, but it didn’t feel shorter,’’ Ibanez said. “It just felt like you got more of what you wanted — what our fans want is more action — and less of what you didn’t want, which is more dead time. It reminds me of the games I grew up watching in the ’80s and early ’90s.”
Opening games of the Cactus League aren’t usually scrutinized closely, but this one had an air of importance. Major league executives Theo Epstein, Joe Torre and Morgan Sword flew in for the occasion. Josh Rawitch, president of the Hall of Fame, was in attendance and planned to take the official scorecard back to Cooperstown to preserve for posterity.
The pitch clock manifested in some interesting ways. Jarred Kelenic said that in his first at-bat, a strikeout, it had a definite effect.
“Honestly, my first at-bat kind of came quick,’’ he said. “That’s kind of why I punched out. I got a little rushed out there. But once we get back into the rhythm of it, I think it will be OK.”
And Ray, who worked the first two innings, said he thought he had to work more quickly than he actually did. At one point, Murphy said he had to try to slow Ray down.
“I feel like I work better when I’m working faster,’’ Ray said. “So it kind of gave me a gauge to work off of. I looked up at [the clock] a couple of times. Even when I felt ‘I’d better hurry, I feel like I’m taking a little bit of time,’ I looked up and it was at, like, 11. So it wasn’t really that big of an issue.”
No question some players will have to change their preparation tactics. But I suspect it will become second nature before too long, as Ibanez predicted.
“I think the hitters are going to take a little time to adjust, just getting a feel from some of the players,’’ Murphy said. “They’re halfway through their routine and all of a sudden the umpire says, ‘Hey, you basically gotta get ready.’ So they have to rush through it. But the pitchers seem fine with it.”
This was just one game, and an inconsequential one at that. It will take months to see if all these tweaks have the desired effect, or to ascertain the unintended consequences.
But speaking from decades of watching meaningless and interminable spring training contests, this was the sort of game that would have dragged on and on and on under the previous guidelines. Instead, it moved at a pace that I believe will enhance the sport once it’s matched with regular-season intensity and readiness.
Perhaps Murphy said it best.
“Nobody wants to spend four hours on the field when you can play the same game in three hours.”