Broken bats: NL pitchers ponder season with no swings

Three or four hours before a National League game, they’d be cackling around the cage.

Madison Bumgarner and buddies — or pitchers from any home team, really — taking batting practice under an afternoon sun in an otherwise empty ballpark.

After all the bunting drills, when they finally got to swing some lumber, you’d hear oohs and aahs, hoots and hollers, boasting and bragging, teasing and laughing.

Maybe even the occasional wager or two.

But that merry pursuit of a secondary skill is suddenly an endangered species in baseball. Under new rules for this abbreviated season delayed by the coronavirus, all games will include the designated hitter — knocking NL pitchers right out of the batter’s box.

“Well, obviously my thoughts don’t really matter,” said a smiling Bumgarner, the Arizona Diamondbacks newcomer who leads active pitchers with 19 career home runs. “I do what I’m told. I’ll sit there and pitch and that’s it for now. I think that’s obviously where everybody wants the game to go, so it is what it is.”

Looking to protect pitchers and simplify roster construction in the middle of a pandemic, Major League Baseball players and owners agreed to expand the DH this year to the National League, a rule in place for AL clubs since 1973.

There’s no guarantee the change will stick beyond this abnormal season sheared to 60 games — but it certainly might. And even if not next year, it seems a universal DH is coming soon that would mean pitchers never hit regularly again.

Decades of hot debate ... decided just like that.

“I’m upset I can’t get a Silver Slugger,” joked San Diego Padres right-hander Chris Paddack, who batted .119 as a rookie last season.

No more one-in-a-million surprises from funny-looking pitchers at the plate — like...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Broken-bats-NL-pitchers-ponder-season-with-no-15419621.php