New Major League Baseball rules for 2023

Just over a week away from the Washington Nationals home opener. The Nats will play the Atlanta Braves next Thursday, March 30th week away. But when the up y'all's play ball, things going to look a little different this time around. First, there will now be a pitch clock. If there's a runner on base, pitchers have 20 seconds to deliver the ball to the plate 15 seconds, 15 seconds if the bases are empty. And if they go over the allotted time, a ball will be added to the count. A ball will be called if a pitcher makes more than two pickup attempts or pick off attempts, I should say, or if they step off the pitching rubber more than twice per batter.

Meantime shifts will also be banned under the new rules. Lot of rules teams are going to be required to have two infielders on each side of second base and the bases will be larger this year. They're going to increase from 15 to 18 inches. So the goal here with these changes is to speed up and reduce the length of these major league games. The average game took three hours and four minutes last year. Long time. Woo, the new rules though trim about 20 minutes off that time during spring training game, so we'll see what happens in the big ones.

baseball, sports