With opener looming, Kirk and Blue Jays must master new, ‘confusing’ rule now

DUNEDIN, Fla. — With one out in the fourth inning Friday night, Blue Jays starter Alek Manoah needed a little more time.

Darick Hall of the Phillies was at the plate with a full count, and Manoah wanted to be sure he threw the right pitch. With the pitch clock counting down, Manoah realized he was running out of time to get on the same page as catcher Alejandro Kirk.

But under baseball’s new rules, pitchers can’t step off the rubber when the bases are empty — an interruption in play must be initiated elsewhere. Realizing this, Kirk called time, and it was granted by home plate umpire Brennan Miller.

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The problem was, Kirk stayed where he was instead of starting to move toward the mound — a violation of the new rules. Miller, a first-year umpire who’s well-acquainted with the pitch clock from his work in the minor leagues, did what he should under the circumstances. The violation resulted in an automatic ball, allowing Hall to reach first on a walk and prompting Blue Jays manager John Schneider to jog out of the dugout in search of an explanation.

In the end, a spring-training walk is relatively harmless. But the incident illustrated the adjustments players are still making to MLB’s new rules, and — most importantly for the Blue Jays — it showed that after arriving late to camp, Kirk still has some adjustments to make before the games really count.

“In this case, I asked for time out but I stayed there for maybe a second or two,” Kirk said afterwards through interpreter Hector Lebron. “That’s why it was ball four.”

“To tell you the truth, it’s a little bit confusing with the speed of the game,” Kirk added. “You’ve really got to be thinking ahead (in case) anything happens, but I feel pretty good right now with the rules.”

A similar issue occurred earlier in spring, but of course that’s why Grapefruit League games are played. As manager John Schneider sees it, as long as Kirk has a full grasp of the rules by Opening Day on Thursday, the Blue Jays will be fine.

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“It’s good it’s happening now,” Schneider said. “I think it’s happened twice with Kirky in three-ball counts, where it’s ‘all right, you got to call time and make a mound visit.’ He called time, but it took him a while to get out there. So it’s just initiating with the mound visit as opposed to calling time and waiting a little bit. So, still working through the rules a little bit, especially Kirky. He got a late start on camp (due to the birth of his daughter), so it’s good that it happens now.”

Afterwards, Manoah agreed that this is the right setting for any miscommunication to occur. At the same time, he expressed some frustration with the walk, remarking: “these rules are getting a little out of hand.”

Regardless, the rules are here to stay at this point and while there’s a degree of umpire discretion involved, players must assume that any infractions will be called by the book. Under those circumstances, Manoah wants Kirk to call time out whenever the pitch clock’s at three seconds or less and they have yet to agree on a sign.

“This pitch clock’s kind of a new thing,” Manoah said. “He hasn’t had as much game action to realize ‘OK, we’re down to three seconds.’ Once we get to three seconds, there’s no time for even him taking the chance of calling another pitch and it not being the right one, because even if it is (the one Manoah wants) I have like one and a half seconds to react and then throw.

“So I think just him having that awareness the more and more he plays and more and more he understands that pitch clock. We’re all trying to still learn this thing. I just learned that rule.”

MLB is expected to allow pitchers to continue calling their own games with PitchCom devices worn on their gloves. But for pitchers like Manoah, who prefer a more traditional approach to game calling, there’s pressure to agree on a pitch quickly.

Thankfully for the Blue Jays, Kirk and Manoah have a strong understanding of one another, having worked together 30 times during the regular season last year, plus once more in the All-Star Game and again in the playoffs.

“That helps,” Kirk said. “We’ve almost always on the same page. Yet of course there are going to be days with the new rules that we probably won’t be on the same page, but I’d say we’ll adapt to that and we’re going to be fine.”

Whenever they aren’t in agreement, the solution is simple: Kirk must call time and immediately head towards Manoah. It’ll cost the Blue Jays one of their allotted mound visits, but as Manoah said: “It’s better than ball four, you know.” And better to make  these mistakes now as long as it means avoiding them later.

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