When Yankees batter José Caballero delayed looking up at Blue Jays pitcher Spencer Miles in Toronto, HP Umpire Steven Jaschinski warned New York for an illegal delay tactic, leading to widespread confusion and online outrage that one viral content creator described as the umpire creating a new rule mid-game to punish a player he found annoying.
Rather than click-bait our way to viral monetization at the expense of factuality and reason, we've waited a bit to digest the play, research the rules, and cite our sources as we analyze what exactly happened at Rogers Centre.
With none out and one on in the top of the 6th inning, Caballero stepped into the batter's box, but kept his head down as he took his preparatory stance. By doing so, Caballero might have sought to induce pitcher Miles to come set and commit a pitch clock violation for coming set before the batter was alert to (looking at) the pitcher.
When MLB first introduced its pitch clock rules in 2023 Spring Training, it prescribed three timed responsibilities: catchers had to be in the catcher's box by the timer's nine-second mark, batters had to be in the box and alert to the pitcher by eight seconds, and the pitcher had to begin their delivery prior to the expiration of time.
Shortly thereafter, pitcher Max Scherzer attempted to catch batters off-guard by coming set and immediately firing home as soon as the batter began to look up. Nary a week later, MLB issued a new rule prohibiting pitchers from coming set before the batter becomes alert.
One month later, Red Sox pitcher Kenley Jansen found himself called for three Scherzer Rule pitch timer violations as HP Umpire Derek Thomas ruled that Jansen came set before Cardinals batter Willson Contreras took his position with both feet in the batter's box and became alert to the pitcher. Once again, MLB issued a memo declaring a new pitch clock policy: batters could no longer induce Scherzer Rule violations by delaying their box entry or alertness by momentarily looking at the pitcher and then looking away as the pitcher comes set. Batters would now be considered alert (and thus pitchers eligible to come set) once they placed one foot in the batter's box and upon the first moment they looked at the pitcher, even if they looked away again.
This new Contreras Rule explained Diamondbacks batter Josh Rojas and Phillies pitcher Craig Kimbrel's pitch clock violation duel in May 2023, culminating with a confrontation that umpires had to break up. MLB effectively declared that neither pitchers (Scherzer Rule) nor batters (Contreras Rule) could attempt to circumnavigate the pitch clock rules to try and gain an unfair advantage.
Back to the present day, when Yankees batter Caballero stepped into the box, he briefly flashed a glance at Toronto pitcher Miles before looking down and delaying his gaze at the pitcher. But because of the three-year-old Contreras Rule, HP Umpire Jaschinski warned Caballero for attempting to circumvent the pitch clock rules to gain an advantage by trying to bait the pitcher into a violation, the first infraction of which is a warning. Had Caballero committed a second Contreras Rule violation, he would have been charged a strike.
So while the Daily News declared, "Caballero did nothing wrong," that declaration happens to be devoid of accuracy.
