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Baseball Laboratory Coming Attractions
That’ Amaury News and Commentary
By Amaury Pi-González
OAKLAND–The Atlantic League might not be the Jerry Lewis Nutty Professor’s film of 1963, but this league keeps putting together new formulas, some that are currently ruling the game, like the pitch clock, and there is more to come. The Atlantic League is a partner league of MLB and where ideas and innovations are tested during their regular games and then (If approved) send to the major leagues. It is the Baseball Laboratory.
Here below are two experiments currently that they are working on during their games.
1-The DR. Not the Dominican Republic, but the Designated Runner. Each team will list a player who is not in the starting lineup as a Designated Pinch Runner. Such a player may be substituted at any point in the game as a base runner. Both, the player who is substituted, and the pinch-runner, may then return to the game without penalty.
2-For Pitchers. A single disengagement limit. Currently a pitcher under the clock restriction, ‘can step’ out of the mound on pickup attempts per plate appearance without penalty. But now on a third disengagement, the pitcher is charged with a balk, unless an out is recorded. This prevents pitchers to abuse the system and the timer is reset, Base runners can be more aggressive on the base paths taking bigger leads.
It is all about pitching. As I recently spoke with A’s television commentator Dallas Braden before a game at the Oakland Coliseum this year, we spoke about pitching. He agreed with me when I told him it was all about pitching. We were talking about this difficult start of the season for the Oakland A’s, where the offense has showed up in some of the games, but yet they have lost the majority of the games because their starting pitching earned run average in the stratosphere. Dallas pitched one of the 23 perfect games in history, during Mother’s Day at the Coliseum, on May 9, 2010, 4-0 against the Tampa Bay Rays.
“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or put its failures behind you and start over again. That’s the way life is. with a new game, every day and that’s the way baseball is” -Bob Feller, Hall of Fame pitcher and WWII Veteran.
Oakland A’s play by play broadcaster Amaury Pi Gonzalez can be heard on the A’s Spanish radio network at 1010 KIQI San Francisco and 990 KATD Pittsburg and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com
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