The New York Post e-Edition

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME

Just one day in, MLB’s new rules have changed sport for the better

Mike Vaccaro Mvaccaro@nypost.com

I’VE been hard on the Commish. I have. There have been a lot of things that Rob Manfred has done in the eight years since he assumed stewardship of Major League Baseball from Bud Selig that I’ve taken issue with, found fault with. Those things are all a part of his permanent record. But so is this:

The game is better this year than it was last year.

OK: This is a ridiculously small sample size upon which to pass judgment, I get that. But it is hard to shake the notion that the 2023 season, even in the wee small hours of early morning, looks different — better — than the one we last saw as midnight struck on the 2022 season.

And let us count the ways:

1. Time of game

I get it: No demographic has both waxed poetic through the years about baseball’s timeless (and clock-less) nature and complained about the fact the games take forever than the men and women who write about baseball. I shall plead nolo contendere on behalf of myself and every one of my colleagues.

That said: this was not a just a complaint of ink-stained wretches. At least once — usually multiple times — as recent nine-inning baseball games have dragged on past 3 ½ and four hours there will be some voice screeching from the upper deck who has grown weary from inactivity: “JUST THROW THE DAMNED BALL!” is the cleanest version of this complaint.

They throw the damn ball now. The Yankees-Giants game on Opening Day wrapped in a tidy 2:33, and Mets-Marlins clocked in at 2:42. The average game went 2:45, 18 minutes shorter than last year’s average of 3:03. And the seven games played on Opening Day last year stretched to an average of 3:11. Apologies to Max Scherzer, shorter games are better games for everybody, and the pitch clock is the engine for that. And the quirks — like whatever it was that cost Jeff McNeil a strike in Miami — will work themselves out.

FULL DISCLOSURE: My argument against pitch clocks was always this: I remember as a kid, when I’d get to go to one or two games a year, I’d root for extra innings because I wanted to stay at the ballpark forever. Three things: a) I was a supernerdy kid; b) it was 1976 and our entertainment options were limited; c) baseball remains the grandest of all games when baseball is actually being played — inactivity appeals to nobody.

2. Limiting pick-off plays/ oversized bags

Teams will figure out the first part. And the second … well, to the naked eye the bases look the same, but the new 18-inch bags mean the bases are 4 ½ inches closer to each other than they used to be. And so it was unsurprising that there were 21 steals among the 15 games (in 23 tries). That’s the most for an Opening Day since … 1907!

FULL DISCLOSURE: The worst casualty of the launchangle era was that not just the stolen base, but smart aggressive baserunning in general became marginalized. I will admit: I prefer triples to home runs, and I prefer seeing a guy go first-to-third (even Daniel Vogelbach did that Thursday!) to upper-tank home runs. I’m still pretty nerdy.

3. No more shifts

Yep, for years I was among the brigade who screamed: bigleague hitters should figure out how to beat the shift. I was flipped by two realities: a) the original shift was created for Ted Williams, and Teddy Ballgame figured out how to hit .344 in his career hitting through, over and under the shift; it’s not just modern players who are stubborn; b) the only people who like the idea of a short right fielder scooping up ball after ball that was a base hit for 125 years were pitchers. And nobody ever cares what pitchers feel when it affects offense.

There were more hits-perhour-of-baseball on Opening Day (just over 6) than on any

in 20 years; in 2022 HPHOB was just over 5. That makes a huge difference.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Though I did love a) that the Royals loopholed the rule by moving right fielder MJ Melendez to short right against old friend Joey Gallo, shifting the other outfielders way toward right to cover for him; b) that Gallo hit a textbook double-play ground ball right at Melendez; c) that Melendez then bobbled the ball and booted the play. The game is still played by human beings, after all.

4. Extra-inning games

There were none on Opening Day, so we were ghosted by the ghost runner, and this isn’t a new rule so much as a newish one that still draws debate. So I will go straight to …

FULL DISCLOSURE: Here’s another rule I was dead-set against when it was invented in COVID Summer, and it is good that it disappears in October. But much as the appeal of a five-hour Yankees-Red Sox game has all but evaporated, so, too, has the appetite for 17-inning games in May and August. Here’s what I would do: play the 10th inning straight. Play the 11th with the ghost man on first. And from there on out, play with the man on second.

After they dealt an ace, the Yankees will play a couple wild cards.

Gerrit Cole was everything he was supposed to be during an Opening Day, shutout win over the Giants, but there is plenty of uncertainty ahead as the Yankees’ injury-ravaged rotation looks to Clarke Schmidt and Jhony Brito this weekend.

Will a couple of standouts in February and March turn into helpful pieces as April arrives? The usually deep and loaded Yankees will learn more about their rotation depth far earlier than they would have hoped.

Schmidt will get the first shot, facing off against San Francisco’s Alex Cobb on Saturday afternoon in The Bronx, where the young righty will try to show he deserved a rotation spot even before Frankie Montas, Carlos Rodon and Luis Severino went down.

Cole, who threw six scoreless innings Thursday, was supposed to pass the ball to Rodon, his $162 million new co-ace. Instead, the second leg of the Yankees’ long season will be run by a 27-yearold trying to establish himself in the majors.

“I thought he executed this spring really well,” Cole said of Schmidt, who was set to battle Domingo German for the No. 5 slot before the injuries boosted both to the rotation. “He came in with some uncertainty — is he fighting for a spot or is he not? I thought he approached the first few games just as well as he approached the last game. He focused on trying to throw strikes, trying to build the foundation.”

Schmidt impressed all of camp, including racking up 25 strikeouts in 19 2/₃ Grapefruit League innings buoyed by a new weapon. Schmidt’s cutter might have been the Yankees’ pitching discovery of the spring and adds to a deep, five-pitch repertoire that the club believes is coming together.

The young righty, a first-round pick in 2017, has shown signs of promise and posted a 3.12 ERA in 57 2/₃ innings last season. But his big-league work was mostly out of the bullpen, and he saw plenty of time in Triple-A.

Schmidt, who prefers to start, felt this spring training as if he were in a better position than his previous springs, and not just because he became slotted into the rotation.

“I don’t know if it’s mentally I’m just in a different place or what it is. I just feel very confident in myself and where I’m at,” Schmidt said during camp. “I’ve always said I’ve been confident, stuff like that, but it’s kind of a different feel when you have … that last year experience. Knowing what it’s like to be up there and knowing how to get guys out. Knowing what my stuff works like.”

The Yankees won’t have Montas (right shoulder surgery) until at least August, and Rodon (left forearm muscle strain) and Severino (strained right lat) for at least a few weeks. With Nestor Cortes and German lined up at the back of the rotation, they will find out plenty about Schmidt and Brito quickly.

Brito, a 25-year-old who made 15 starts with Triple-A Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre last year, essentially is the team’s eighth starter, yet the various health issues will make the righty the call for Game 3. Brito beat out other depth options such as Matt Krook, Deivi Garcia and Randy Vasquez.

Brito, who was added to the 40man roster this offseason to protect him from the Rule 5 draft, pitched to a 2.96 ERA in 112 2/₃ Double- and Triple-A innings last season.

With 13 Grapefruit League innings in which he allowed three earned runs (2.08 ERA) — and a brilliant finale, tossing 5 ¹/₃ perfect innings against the Blue Jays on Sunday — the Dominican Republic native earned the spot and will make his major league debut.

“He’s got our attention all camp,” manager Aaron Boone said Sunday. “He’s earned a strong reputation in player development. He was very at ease doing what he was doing today. That was good to see.”

The Yankees will see more quickly and find out about pitchers whose time, quite suddenly, is now.

NEW YORK POST ACTION

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2023-04-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-04-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://nypost.pressreader.com/article/282415583550329

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