Jose Caballero, Yankees claim MLB changed a rule on him without notice

The Yankees’ biggest enemy in their Game 1 loss to the Pirates Wednesday afternoon was…the pitch clock?

In the bottom of the sixth, while batting with two outs and a runner on, Jose Caballero was called for a pitch clock violation that turned an 0-1 count into 0-2, and ended up getting hitting coach James Rowson ejected.

Caballero is notorious for using all of the allotted batter’s time on the clock to get ready, which already caused a dust-up with Dennis Santana Tuesday night, and this time, he was penalized.

“He actually said they were making new rules today, and it’s on me because I was deceiving or something like that to the pitcher, which doesn’t make sense,” Caballero said. “Maybe my English is so bad that I don’t understand, but I’m not trying to trick someone, because I do the same thing over and over. You can check my at-bats.”

“I’m gonna plead the fifth here…just MLB came out with something new today, and we have to change again,” manager Aaron Boone. “Very (frustrating). It’s embarrassing."

In a statement given to pool reporter Brendan Kuty of The Athletic after the game, crew chief Adrian Johnson said that MLB told umpires not to issue a warning to Caballero about his proclivity to not present to the pitcher until the very last tick of the clock before :08, and instead, immediately issue a violation if they felt he broke the pitch-clock rules.

“He's been warned all season. We were instructed not to warn him. We were instructed to violate him. That's what it is. It's a violation," Johnson told Kuty.

As seen in the video above, YES cameras clearly picked up home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott telling Caballero ‘you don’t get to do the 3 or 4 seconds thing in the box anymore,’ to which Boone defended that he was looking up at nine seconds and Caballero yelled, ‘you’re picking on me!’ – and now, apparently, that is indeed illegal?

“If you’re going to change the rule, at least notice us before the game, not in the game,” Caballero said. “It’s frustrating for me, and it’s not the first time the league has changed the rules on me. Whenever they were making new rules, they would tell me and I would make that adjustment to my routine, and now they just claim I can’t do it, which takes me out of my routine.”

“Look, it’s his routine; every batter has their routine,” Boone said. “I mean, pitchers hold the ball…sometimes you get set, and they hold the ball until zero with that in mind, so.”

It was the second instance in that inning of the pitch clock vexing the Yankees – earlier, in the top of the frame, Gerrit Cole was on the rubber getting ready to deliver a pitch when the clocks simply went off, and he was called for a balk when he stepped off to alert the umpires.

To Cole’s credit, he struck out Brandon Lowe and got a pop-up to end the inning unharmed, and after the game, he did admit the call was right and credited his catcher for keeping him on track.

“They were not aware the clock went off – it is my fault, I broke and stepped off at the same time,” Cole said. “I was startled it went off; I was tracking the clock and holding the runner, and that is a balk, absolutely, but it was caused by some sort of malfunction. It is a bit unfortunate, but great job by (Austin) Wells who said some great things to get me settled, and we got out of it, but it’s a tough break.”

Still, while Cole’s issue was a blip on the radar, the Caballero situation – which already caused a dust-up Tuesday night with Pirates hurler Dennis Santana – is something that the Yankees must now manage long-term…which, perhaps, Boone understands after a comment made earlier in the day about Jose:

“I didn’t like him; he was a pest,” Boone said pregame when asked about facing Caballero when he was with Tampa Bay. “He was one of the guys I would yell at from the dugout. Now, I like him; we’ve had a laugh about that, but yeah, I wasn’t his biggest fan.”