Vets dislike pitch clock timer
The pitch clock baseball will implement during spring training games – and which might carry over into the regular season – was not especially popular among veterans in the Diamondbacks’ clubhouse after it was announced on Friday afternoon.
“I am not a fan,” Diamondbacks shortstop Nick Ahmed said. “Although I am a fan of guys working at a good tempo.”
Added right fielder Steven Souza Jr.: “I think the ultimate goal is to help bring more fans to the game. If that’s an avenue, then so be it. I don’t personally think it is.”
Playing with a 20-second timer, batters will be required to be in the box with at least five seconds remaining while pitchers will have to begin their windups or come set before the clock expires. Umpires will assess ball or strike penalties to those in violation.
The clock, which won’t be in use on the first pitch of an at-bat, will start running when the pitcher receives the ball from the catcher prior to the second pitch.
“Just the idea of putting a clock on something in baseball doesn’t seem right to me,” Ahmed said. “I’m a baseball purist, I guess, in that sense. I don’t know how much it’s going to speed the game up. If it does by two or three minutes, is that really worth it to have a clock? I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.”
Ahmed said he believes players need to be taught when young to play at a good tempo.
Diamondbacks prospect Daulton Varsho, who played with a pitch clock during the Arizona Fall League, said he didn’t mind it.
“I actually liked it,” he said. “The game moved a little bit quicker. As a catcher, you’ve got to think a little bit faster, you’ve always got to stay up on top of things, and I thought it created a little bit different dynamic where pitcher and catcher relationships have to be closer.”
Both Souza and Ahmed expected that they would have plenty of time between
pitches, but Souza didn’t think his opinion was as important as those of bigname pitchers.
“If Clayton Kershaw or Max Scherzer or Zack Greinke have a problem with it, that’s a problem,” Souza said. “Those are guys that are very important to our game and we need to cater to them. Fans come to see them, not come to see them rush the ball in there.”
So what does Greinke think of it? “I don’t know,” he said.
Is that because he hasn’t thought about it yet?
“I mean,” he said, “I don’t have any response to it.”
The pitch clock won’t be enforced early in camp to allow players and umpires to get used to it.
The commissioner’s office’s announcement noted that “no decision has been made on whether the timer will be used in regular season games.”
Health history
Greinke threw another bullpen session on Friday, doing so with a hitter standing in the box but not swinging. He said he threw about 40 pitches in all and felt good doing so.
He acknowledged he was not feeling good last spring training because of recurring shoulder issues, explaining that he has dealt with various arm issues for years.
“There’s always something,” he said. “The elbow bothered me for five years, then the shoulder bothered me the last three. It’s just stuff you deal with. …
“It’s just a fact that something bothers me every outing, but that also happens to almost every pitcher in baseball and every hitter. So that’s why guys don’t talk about it -- probably because it’s pointless to talk about.”
He didn’t think last spring’s shoulder problems affected his results early last season.
Short hops
❚ Right-hander Matt Koch was scheduled to start Saturday’s Cactus League opener but was scratched with what manager Torey Lovullo described as “general arm fatigue.” It’s not considered serious and Koch instead will make his spring debut on Thursday. Rule 5 pick Nick Green, a right-hander out of the Yankees organization, will start in Koch’s place.
❚ Ketel Marte, expected to be the club’s primary center fielder, will start at second base on Saturday. Lovullo wants to get Marte comfortable and “back in the swing of things.”