Advancements in technology are great, until they do not work as planned.
That brings us to Major League Baseball’s PitchCom system that was accidentally tipping off Tampa Bay’s hitters about incoming pitches from Minnesota’s Kenta Maeda during Thursday’s spring training game.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said the PitchCom device catcher Tony Wolters was using was projecting out louder than normal sounds, and because it was being played in a nearly empty Tropicana Field (announced attendance: a little over 2,500) Rays hitters were able to pick up on the signs and know exactly what pitch was coming.
Knowing what pitch is coming is a pretty significant advantage for hitters, and despite that Maeda still threw two scoreless innings and struck out two batters, allowing just two hits during his work.
Home plate umpire Brennan Miller heard all of the communications the device was projecting between Maeda and Wolters, and the umpires eventually brought it to Baldelli’s attention between innings.
At that point the device was adjusted and stopped tipping off the pitches to Rays hitters.
The whole point of the PitchCom system was to remove the possibility of base runners and hitters stealing signs between the pitcher and catcher. If the hitters can actually hear what is being called that sort of defeats the entire purpose of having it.
There have been some occasional flaws with the system since teams started using it, but those have usually involved the system either not working, or crowd noise disrupting pitchers from hearing the call.
This was a very different twice. It ultimately ended up working out and being corrected.
