Add New York Mets ace Justin Verlander to the long list of MLB personnel still learning what is and isn’t allowable under the new pitch clock operations embraced for this season.
“I found myself trying to kick some mud out and fix the mound,” Verlander said following his spring training outing against the Houston Astros on Friday, per Tim Crowley of SNY. “The pitch clock was still running, so I didn’t know how to address that.”
Fellow Mets star starter Max Scherzer had somewhat of a rough go of it against the clock during last Friday’s exhibition matchup versus the Washington Nationals. Scherzer saw a double play get wiped out due to a pitch clock violation and was also called for a balk when he tried to take advantage of what he thought were the rules and “quick-pitch” a hitter.
Interestingly, Verlander revealed that umpire C.B. Bucknor admitted he “didn’t know” how to handle Friday’s situation as it pertains to the clock.
“They haven’t addressed that either,” Verlander continued. “As common sense, he said let me know and you’ll have the time you need. It’s a good mound. You don’t want to slip and hurt yourself or give up a home run if it’s fixable.”
Pittsburgh Pirates veteran pitcher Rich Hill is among players already advocating for MLB to make what he referred to as “tweaks” to the new rules, such as adding five seconds to the clock. Hill also explained how he received a pitch clock violation this spring in part because of an umpire.
“The umpire didn’t have his mask down, so what we’re going through is this mirroring effect where we’re so used to seeing a natural progression and a flow of the hitter getting into the box, the umpire pulling the mask down, OK, now we step on the mound or vice versa,” Hill said during the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast, according to Ryan Gilbert of Audacy. “Now it’s you just have to be ready. Whatever you see, it doesn’t matter, whoever gets there first.”
Verlander seemed to agree with Hill regarding players, umpires and MLB coming together at some point soon to allow for small changes to the rules that ultimately could benefit everyone involved. Whether or not the league will care about such comments before Opening Day is unknown.
