NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 New York Yankees shortstop Jos\u00e9 Caballero was targeted by Major League Baseball for some pest control, sparking yet another squabble.<\/p>\n
Weary of Caballero’s routine of waiting to acknowledge the pitcher just before the pitch clock reaches eight seconds, MLB told umpires Wednesday his regimen amounted to deception.<\/p>\n
Plate umpire Quinn Wolcott charged Caballero with a pitch-clock violation in the sixth inning that led to a strikeout and the ejection of hitting coach James Rowson as New York lost a doubleheader opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-3 in 10 innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen other guys do some other things and they don\u2019t call anything on them,\u201d Caballero said. \u201cThey\u2019re just picking on me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caballero was acquired from Tampa Bay last July 31 and Yankees manager Aaron Boone acknowledged his thoughts on the utilityman spun 180 degrees with the swap.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of those guys I would yell at from the dugout,\u201d Boone said Wednesday morning. \u201cHe was a pest and I didn\u2019t like it. Now I like him because he’s a good player and he’s on our side. But, yeah, we’ve had a laugh about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
During a June 14 game at Toronto, Caballero twice was deliberate in raising his head until eight seconds remained on the pitch clock, leading to a warning by plate umpire Steven Jaschinsk. That prompted a delay of more than two minutes while Caballero, Jaschinski, Boone and crew chief John Tumpane discussed the situation.<\/p>\n
Benches and bullpens cleared at the end of the eighth inning during Monday night’s series opener when Pirates reliever Dennis Santana yelled at Caballero for taking too long to get ready in the batter\u2019s box. Then on Wednesday, Wolcott charged Caballero with a violation in the sixth inning while the batter faced Carmen Mlodzinski with the Yankees trailing 2-0. After a delay of 2 1\/2 minutes, Cabellero took a called third strike that stranded a runner.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not allowed to do an inordinate amount of time looking down, trying to get the pitcher to cause a violation,\u201d Wolcott told a pool reporter. \u201cThere\u2019s no other hitter that gets in the box, takes the amount of the time that Caballero does while looking down, not making eye contact with the pitcher. Obviously it\u2019s caused a lot of problems in the past. It\u2019s not going to be allowed anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
MLB adopted the pitch clock for the 2023 season in an effort to cut game times. It has been 15 seconds with no runners and 18 seconds with runners since 2024.<\/p>\n
In cracking down on Caballero, MLB cited a provision in its Pace of Game Procedures that states: \u201cConduct by batters designed to deceive a pitcher into beginning their windup or coming to the set position in violation of these regulations shall be considered circumvention.”<\/p>\n
Crew chief Adrian Johnson said the series opener skirmish caused MLB to take action.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not allowed anymore. It was the cause of a bench-clearing situation on Monday night. Major League Baseball stepped in, and they wanted enforced,\u201d crew chief Adrian Johnson said. \u201cWe were instructed not to warn him. We were instructed to violate him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boone said MLB didn’t inform the Yankees before the game of the change in stance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s embarrassing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Based on previous conversations with MLB, Boone instructed Caballero to \u201cmake sure you\u2019re looking up at nine so that you are alert by eight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe actually said that they were making new rules today and it\u2019s on me because I was deceiving or something like that to the pitcher, which doesn\u2019t make sense,\u201d Caballero said. \u201cI don\u2019t know, maybe my English is so bad that I don\u2019t understand, but deceiving kind of means that you\u2019re trying to trick someone and I\u2019m not trying to trick someone because I do the same thing over and over. You can check my last 50 at-bats and see if I do it the same or not, or check maybe 100 at-bats or 150.\u201d<\/p>\n
MLB issued a memo in 2023 warning batters not to keep a foot out of the batter’s box, which Willson Contreras called \u201cthe Willson rule.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caballero claims he is being singled out.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor everyone, it is eight seconds. For me was nine,” he said. “But now they just don\u2019t want me to do my routine so it\u2019s kind of like tricky for me because it\u2019s the way that I get settled, the way that I try to approach my at-bats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caballero is concerned about giving pitchers control of the timing of pitches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I get in the box and they have 16, 17 seconds left, they can hold the ball on me all that time and I\u2019d be tied up,” he said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 New York Yankees shortstop Jos\u00e9 Caballero was targeted by Major League Baseball for some pest control, sparking yet another squabble. Weary of Caballero’s routine of waiting to acknowledge the pitcher just before the pitch clock reaches eight seconds, MLB told umpires Wednesday his regimen amounted to deception. Plate umpire Quinn Wolcott … Continue reading Yankees’ Jos\u00e9 Caballero targeted by MLB for crackdown on plate routine of waiting to engage pitcher<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-26 03:17:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1527671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527672,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527671\/revisions\/1527672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1527671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1527671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1527671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}