OAKLAND -- The grace period is over for players who violate Major League Baseball’s new pace-of-play rules, with violators receiving fines starting Friday.
The month of April was used as a trial period where hitters and pitchers received warnings if they were found to be in violation.
“It's constant,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “We get a couple a week, just letting us know where we stand amongst the league. We do have a few guys they consider potentially for infractions, but I think overall we're pretty good about it.”
The changes appear to be having the intended effect. In data provided by Bay Area stats expert David Feldman, the average time of a nine-inning game across the majors is 2 hours, 54 minutes, down from 3:01 over the entire 2014 season. The A’s are playing at an even quicker pace, clocking in at 2:46, down from 3:04 last season.
Hitters are required to keep one foot in the batter’s box after they take a pitch, with some exceptions to the rule. The time between half-innings is being regulated, with 2 minutes, 25 seconds the maximum break time for locally televised games and 2:45 for national telecasts. Pitchers can’t throw any warm-up pitches inside of the 30-second mark.
A’s second baseman Eric Sogard was surprised to find an e-mail from MLB waiting at his locker from the season-opening series against Texas, alerting him he had committed a “pace of game violation.” The letter was brief, just identifying the game in which it happened and the inning.
Sogard tried to go back and watch video of the penalty but wasn’t positive if he identified the right pitch.
“One pitch was up and in, and I kind of moved my feet (out of the box),” Sogard said.
But he added that although baseball players are routine-oriented, the warnings do get players thinking in the right frame of mind and aren’t terribly difficult to adjust to.
Right-hander Dan Otero was relieved when he found out that the clock doesn’t start following a pitching change until after a reliever crosses the warning track on his way to the mound. He tends to jog in from the bullpen at a brisk pace, so he said it wasn’t a big adjustment for him.
“I think it’s affecting the hitters more than the pitchers if I had to guess,” Otero said.
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Mark Canha made his return to the lineup in left field Thursday after a prolonged period of not playing. Part of that was due to the fact Canha had cooled off with the bat, but he also was fighting an illness that zapped his strength for a couple days.
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Left-handed pitcher Eury De La Rosa, who was designated for assignment by the A's last Saturday, was claimed off waivers by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
De La Rosa made seven appearances with Nashville and has allowed three unearned runs -- on no hits, five walks and a hit batsman -- in six innings.
De La Rosa was acquired the Diamondbacks for cash in December of 2014.
