Nats should be pleased with widening of runner's lane by MLB

The Trea Turner Rule is finally getting amended. Not eliminated altogether, but amended in a way that should at least somewhat appease the star shortstop and Nationals manager Davey Martinez after both were burned by it multiple times in the past.

Major League Baseball announced a series of rule changes for the 2024 season Thursday afternoon, and the most notable one for anyone with current or recent ties to the Nats surely was the alteration to the first base running lane.

The runner’s lane will now be widened to include the dirt area between the foul line and the infield grass, MLB announced. In other words, a batter-runner will now be permitted to run in fair territory as long as he stays on the dirt and doesn’t venture onto the infield grass.

Because dirt cutouts aren’t universal across baseball, there will be some leeway for dimensions. The distance between the foul line and the infield grass will be between 18 and 24 inches in every MLB park, with some limited grace periods granted due to difficulty in modifying fields (such as ballparks that use artificial turf).

“Widening the lane allows batters to take a more direct path to first base while retaining protection from interference,” the league said in announcing the change.

The change should have the support of Turner, who infamously was called out for interference in Game 6 of the 2019 World Series when he hit a slow roller in front of the plate and ran in a straight line from the right-handed batter’s box to first base, arriving just as Astros pitcher Brad Peacock’s errant throw struck him and first baseman Yuli Gurriel’s mitt.

Two years later, Turner was again called out on a similar play in Chicago. Both times, Martinez was ejected after arguing umpires’ interpretation of what was for decades a confusing rule.

Rule 5.09(a)(11) states that a batter-runner should be called out for interference if, “in running the last half of the distance from home base to first base, while the ball is being fielded to first base, he runs outside (to the right of) the three-foot line, or inside (to the left of) the foul line, and in the umpire’s judgment in so doing interferes with the fielder taking the throw at first base.”

Opponents of the rule long argued a right-handed batter, in particular, should be allowed to run in a straight line to first base, which is in fair territory. (The three-foot running lane was only in foul territory.) They also felt the defensive team shouldn’t be rewarded for making a bad throw that pulled the first baseman into the batter-runner.

Remarkably, that rule cost the Nationals four times in four seasons, with Josh Bell also called out for interference during another 2021 game in Miami. Last June, in their first trip to Houston since the World Series, the Nats lost a game when umpires didn’t call interference on the Astros’ Jake Meyers, who was clearly running in fair territory and was struck by Keibert Ruiz’s throw to first that would have completed an inning-ending double play in the bottom of the ninth.

“I’m over this play!” Martinez bellowed in his postgame press conference, holding up a printed-out still frame of Meyers running well outside the designated lane. “Seriously, they need to fix the rule. If this is what the umpires see, as he’s running down the line? I’m tired of it. I’m tired of it. Fix it!”

Among the other rule changes announced Thursday:

* The pitch clock will be reduced from 20 to 18 seconds with runners on base, with MLB citing studies that showed the average pitch with runners on base was delivered with 7.3 seconds still on the clock this season.

* Mound visits will be reduced from five to four per game, though teams will still be allowed one ninth-inning visit if they’ve already run out of them at the end of the eighth. MLB says teams averaged only 2.3 mound visits per game this season.

* The pitch clock will resume after a dead ball (such as a foul ball) as soon as the pitcher has the ball and play is ready to resume. The clock didn’t start this season until the pitcher was on the mound, giving him the ability to stall.

* A pitcher who is sent to the mound to warm up for an inning must face at least one batter (in addition to any requirements under the three-batter-minimum rule). MLB said there were 24 instances this season when a pitcher who warmed up at the start of an inning was replaced before ever throwing a pitch, adding approximately three minutes of dead time per game.

The changes were made by the 11-person Competition Committee, which consists of six owners, four players and one umpire. MLB Players’ Association executive director Tony Clark quickly put out his own statement Thursday, saying the four players on the committee voted against the changes.

“As they made clear in the Competition Committee, players strongly feel that, following last season’s profound changes to the fundamental rules of the game, immediate additional changes are unnecessary and offer no meaningful benefits to fans, players or the competition on the field,” Clark said. “This season should be used to gather additional data and fully examine the health, safety and injury impacts of reduced recovery time; that is where our focus will be.”