New digital timers not noticed much on first full day of season

NEW YORK — What clock?

The new digital timers tracking between-inning breaks and pitching changes did not appear to be noticed much on Monday, the first full day of Major League Baseball’s renewed effort to speed the pace of games.

“I’ve never had a problem with it, so I just went and did my thing,” Baltimore pitcher Chris Tillman said following a 6-2 win at Tampa Bay.

New regulations require hitters to keep a foot in the batter’s box — with seven exceptions. The clock times inning breaks and pitching changes at two minutes, 25 seconds for locally televised games and 2:45 for nationally televised games. Pitchers must throw their last warm-up pitches before 30 seconds remain, with exceptions if the pitcher or catcher is on base when the previous half-inning ends.

“I didn’t pay any notion,” New York Yankees Brian McCann.

MLB said penalties are limited to warnings and fines, and those don’t begin until May 1.

Batters used to stepping out tried to keep one foot on the chalk outlining the box.

“We didn’t have any problems at all. The hitters were excellent,” plate umpire Gerry Davis said after working the plate as Boston’s Clay Buchholz pitched the Red Sox to an 8-0 victory at Philadelphia. “I didn’t notice anybody having any problems. The only issues we had was, Clay took a little long getting back out to the mound. He had three innings where he made the last out. It’s difficult to get out in that time. ... I actually noticed that he was hustling and thanked him for doing it.”

Baseball announced the changes in February after the average time of a nine-inning game stretched to a record three hours, two minutes last year, up from 2:33 in 1981.

More drastic measures are being implemented in the minor leagues. Ballparks at Triple-A and DoubleA will have 20-second pitch clocks, and balls and strikes in the count will be used as penalties starting May 1.

While watching the St. Louis Cardinals’ 3-0 win at the Chicago Cubs on television, a game that included, 23 strikeouts, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Brandon McCarthy tweeted “if this is the new strike zone I think you could convince pitchers to use a 10-second pitch clock.”