If the first few hours of baseball for the 2023 MLB season are any indication, we’re going to see some weird situations play out when it comes to the new rules.
The New York Mets got a quick lesson in that on Thursday.
During the Opening Day matchup between the Mets and Marlins, some confusion sparked after home plate umpire Larry Vanover stopped play and charged a strike to Jeff McNeil. The violation in the case had nothing to do with McNeil. But instead, Vanover thought that Pete Alonso was taking too long to return to first base after McNeil’s foul ball. The penalty for that was a strike charged to … McNeil.
It's chaos time in Miami pic.twitter.com/0JtBA9rdu4
— Dillard Barnhart (@BarnHasSpoken2) March 30, 2023
Alonso, McNeil, the Mets broadcast and manager Buck Showalter were all justifiably confused with the ruling. Alonso did walk back to first base, but it didn’t look like he was holding up the game.
Here's a good angle from the Marlins broadcast of the automatic strike called on Alonso.
McNeil fouls a ball off, Alonso makes his way to second base but doesn't get back to first base quickly enough so an automatic strike is called. pic.twitter.com/sQQOaaL4N3
— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) March 30, 2023
Really, Vanover’s decision to call a violation in that spot, charge the strike and then explain the ruling to the Mets caused more a delay than Alonso’s quick walk back to first base.
Despite the extra strike, McNeil would get a hit in that at-bat to put the Mets up by three runs.
McHits are SO back đżď¸ pic.twitter.com/8uxwg00gfe
— New York Mets (@Mets) March 30, 2023
Fans also had plenty of thoughts on that ruling by Vanover.