LeMahieu HR ends inning, no more early exits for pitchers

New York Yankees star DJ LeMahieu launched a three-run homer, and that was all for Pittsburgh starter JT Brubaker.

Brubaker walked off the mound with two outs in the bottom of the second inning, having thrown 49 pitches Saturday. And taking advantage of a rule put in place for early spring training games, the rest of the Pirates left the field, too.

Starting Sunday, no more “roll over” breaks like that. Managers won't be able to call off innings at any point to protect hurlers because of high pitch counts.

That's fine with Texas skipper Chris Woodward.

“Now that we can’t, it’s no longer an option. So we’ve either got to let that guy go or we’ve got to have somebody warming up,” Woodward said. “So it’s actually good, because we need to start playing real baseball, we need to start playing like real games.”

But what if those innings weren't cut short?

“I had our analyst guys kind of mock up a run expectancy, two outs if we rolled it, what was the run expectancy there? It’s like .35 — so we’ve won a few games at 7.2 to 4.8, that type of thing. Bases loaded, one out, like there’s a 1.9 run expectancy there, whatever," Woodward said.

“But I mean, I’m over it. I want some even numbers, some even integers like this, let’s just go real numbers here — 5-4 win, yes,” he said.

ON THE WAY

Top Marlins pitching prospect Sixto Sánchez will make his first appearance of spring training Monday against the Astros, and he’s expected to work two innings.

The Dominican’s progress in camp was delayed by a visa issue and then a false positive on a COVID-19 test. Sanchez is expected to land a spot in the rotation after going 3-2 with a 3.46 ERA in seven starts last year.

WHITE SOX 6, ANGELS 5

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source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/LeMahieu-HR-ends-inning-no-more-early-exits-for-16023970.php