One of the more controversial rule changes in the MLB this season has been the pitch clock imposed to improve the pace of play. Justin Verlander felt the wrath of the pitch clock in Monday’s start for the New York Mets against the Milwaukee Brewers, which he certainly wasn’t pleased about.
The violation occurred in the bottom of the third inning before Brewers slugger Rowdy Tellez came up to bat. Verlander was warming up in anticipation of Tellez’s at-bat, and home plate umpire Jansen Visconti seemingly took exception to how many warmup pitches Verlander had thrown.
This led to Visconti going out to the mound to talk to Verlander, and Verlander wasn’t happy about this. The two began jawing back and forth before Visconti walked back to home plate. When he did so, he immediately called a pitch clock violation on Verlander, resulting in an automatic ball for him in the at-bat.
Justin Verlander was issued an automatic ball for throwing a warm up pitch with 27 seconds remaining on the pitch clock. pic.twitter.com/fEyLn0sTL6
— SNY (@SNYtv) June 26, 2023
It was definitely a bizarre situation, and many fans were not pleased by the call from Visconti.
There has to be wiggle room with the judgement here. Ultimately burns more time with the arguing back and forth than just letting the last warm up pitch go.
— _ (@Charasthmatic) June 26, 2023
They don’t use the clock right. If inning breaks are supposed to be 2:15 and :30 between batter, the clock should be allowed to hit :00 and restart. Otherwise the inning break is only 1:45
— Ryan Kraut (@krauttape) June 26, 2023
I'm curious why the batter wasn't given an automatic strike. He wasn't in the batter's box ready with 8 seconds left. He wasn't even in the box when the ump charged JV w/the ball.
— BP in NC (@BPinNC1) June 27, 2023
https://twitter.com/FBNxYu/status/1673489078191267841
Is anyone else sick of seeing umps slow down the game so they can enforce rules that are designed to speed up the game? MLB is just shooting themselves in the foot over and over again at this point.
— 5am Dan (@DarinWrisley) June 27, 2023
The whole point of the pitch clock was meant to speed up the game, and it has largely helped do that. However, this interaction in particular took far longer than just allowing Verlander to throw his final warmup pitch.
Luckily the automatic ball didn’t end up costing him in the at-bat against Tellez. He would go on to strike out Tellez after battling back in the count.
[SNY]
