For Dominican baseball fans, this is the pre-season where trade rumors, new signings, returning heroes and emerging stars have to be discussed.
This weekend, the president of the Dominican Professional Baseball League (Lidom), Vitelio Mejia, announced on CDN Sports, that the Dominican Winter League would put into practice the current Major League Baseball (MLB) rules. In this case, especially the new rules concerning the time it takes a pitcher to throw the ball, and the time it takes for a batter to get ready to hit the ball.
Mejia told the interviewers, quite rightly, that the Dominican Leagues is the third best baseball league in the world, and as such, needs to implement all of MLB’s rules, especially the new use of clocks for pitchers and batters.
Now, while most people who have watched a Major League game this year know, the pitcher has 15 seconds to throw the ball is there is nobody on base, and 20 seconds in a base is occupied. A batter has to be ready to bat within eight seconds of the last pitch, but the new rules also modify the size of the bases themselves, and control the number of times a pitcher may throw to a base to keep a runner from advancing.
There is also a new rule about shifting players to reduce the possibility of a player to hit towards a certain spot. The bases will be 18 inches on each side instead of 15.
Boston’s star third baseman, Dominican Rafael Devers, was the first player to be struck out when he failed to comply with the new rule and the umpire called a third strike on him on opening day.
The Dominican League begins play on 19 October this 2023.
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El Caribe
7 August 2023