During the third inning on opening day, Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich and Chicago Cubs pitcher Marcus Stroman made MLB history. Officially, Stroman became the first pitcher in the regular season to be penalized for a pitch clock violation and Yelich was the first to benefit from it.
Stroman’s violation came during the third inning on opening day. With a runner on a second base and Stroman ahead in the count on Yelich 1-2, he failed to go into his pitching motion before the pitch timer ran out. As a result Yelich was issued an automatic ball to make the count 2-2. Yelich would go on to draw a walk during that at-bat.
When asked about the moment, Christian Yelich responded, “I went from a 1-2 count to a 2-2 count, which is actually a pretty big deal. It’s going to be something that I think becomes rarer and rarer as the season goes on, but we got one in our favor today. I think people will get used to it. But we’ll definitely take it.”
Christian Yelich and Marcus Stroman made MLB history due to a pitch clock violation, but more occurred around the league on opening day.
In total, 14 pitch timer violations were issued on opening day. Of the 14, eight violations were committed by pitchers, five by batters, and one by a catcher. With 15 games being played on Thursday, this equated to less than one pitch clock violation per game.
It will be interesting to see how many violations are issued throughout the entire season and which group is more often penalized.
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