Remember way back in February when MLB introduced a few new and exciting rules to the game? Well, one of them was pitchers were only allowed 12 seconds between pitches on the mound with no runners on base. Rafael Betancourt got called for it twice Tuesday night.
A ball was added to the count of Carlos Guillen's at-bat in the eighth inning and Brandon Inge's at-bat in the ninth, which made it 3-and-2. Betancourt retired both batters.It seems a bit odd that Betancourt was randomly flagged Tuesday night, especially if he's been working this slow all season. I would suspect someone on the Tigers pointed it out to the umps or perhaps the umpires just decided "hey, let's have some fun tonight!" (UPDATE: Apparently, MLB has a list of slow workers. Odd.)
The question is, after three months and 82 games, why did the umpires wait until now to flag Betancourt, whose slow pace dates to his time in the minor leagues?
At first, manager Eric Wedge assumed that someone from the Detroit Tigers -- possibly manager Jim Leyland -- asked the umpires to keep an eye on Betancourt. By Wednesday, the manager had revised his thinking.
``Jim didn't have anything to do with it,'' Wedge said. ``But somebody gave them a heads up. Why last night?''
Tigers first-base coach Andy Van Slyke denied that any coach was responsible, and third baseman Brandon Inge said it wasn't a player.
Betancourt had never been flagged for violating the rule before, but he had been prodded to speed up.
In any case, rules are rules, even if they're rarely and inconsistently enforced.
Via the Hardball Times.
Previously At FanHouse:
MLB Changes Some Rules, Get Excited
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-05-2007 @ 2:34PM
Greg said...
The umpires were calling balls on Betancourt after holding the ball for 20 sec. after he recieved the ball from the catcher (even when the batter was taking time out of the box). What I don't understand is why they didn't time Capellan because he was going over 20 sec. as well. I took it upon myself to time him after Betancourt was penalized. Long story short, terrible job by the umpiring crew. If you time one guy, then you have to time everyone. Very fishy that all of a sudden The Indians best reliever is being timed just in time for a big series with The Tigers.
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7-06-2007 @ 2:45PM
Sportsmemorabilia said...
Speeding up games is something that Major League Baseball needs to address. Unlike NFL games which have a nice pace to them, professional baseball games are unnecessarily slowed down by pitchers and batters taking too much time in between pitches. Kudos to the league to addressing the situation, and here's to hoping that in the future umpires will be more stringent in enforcing this rule.
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7-09-2007 @ 10:58AM
kevin said...
Major league baseball is long overdue in addressing the amount of time pitchers and batters take in between pitches. These unnecessary delays cause games to drag on much longer than needed. Kudos to the league for finally addressing this issue, and here's to hoping that in the future umpires will be more stringent in enforcing this rule.
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7-05-2007 @ 3:30PM
Greg said...
Yea KUDOS to the league for really addressing this problem. Now that Betancourt can't take 20 sec. between pitches, MLB games are gonna just be flying.
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7-05-2007 @ 3:59PM
Bob said...
What is the bloody rush? Part of the beauty of baseball is that there is no clock--the game takes as long as it takes to complete nine innings. Just because children are in a hurry doesn't mean we all have to be. If MLB wants its games to move along more quickly, maybe they ought to suggest to their umpires to call a few more strikes instead of forcing pitchers to throw up meatballs in order to get a strike call. A tremendous number of umpires (especially the younger ones) absolutely refuse to call a third strike unless the whole ball gets all white. The black edges are part of the plate, too.
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