Baseball's latest effort to get more action in the game (plus O's notes)

Major League Baseball is a taking a distance that was kind of sacred in baseball and changing it later this year. Not in the American League or the National League, but in August in the independent Atlantic League. That is when 60 feet, six inches becomes 61 feet, six inches.

MLB will experiment with one of its partner leagues when its second half starts Aug. 3. The pitching rubber will be moved back one foot in the Atlantic League. This is expected to lead to more balls put in play, fewer strikeouts and more action in the game.

For 15 years in a row, MLB strikeout rates have increased, and last year they reached 9.5 strikeouts per every nine innings. The days of a pitcher fanning seven or eight per nine being a strikeout pitcher are over. Swing and miss is great for the pitcher, but maybe not for the game.

So MLB officials will experiment and see if this does produce more balls in play and fewer strikeouts and more action. The distance of 60 feet, six inches has been the distance from the pitching rubber to home plate since the late 1800s.

Is that worth tinkering with now? For me, I say it's fine to tinker in the Atlantic League. Let's see what it looks like and we'll be armed with more information.

The average fastball velocity last year was 93.3 mph. Remember the good old days, when a 90 mph fastball was average? That's a soft-tosser now. Studies show moving the rubber back a foot will make a fastball at 93.3 mph look like one at 91.6 mph. That was the average fastball velocity in 2010.

As pitchers have gained velocity and used technology to improve the effectiveness of their breaking pitches, the strikeout rate in MLB has increased for 15 consecutive years, from 16.4 percent of plate appearances in 2005 to an all-time MLB record of 23.4 percent in 2020.

Add the defensive shifts to that, and if a batter is not striking out, he is often hitting a grounder right at a fielder. It all has the effect for not only fewer balls in play, but less chances for defenders to make great plays on the ones that are put into play.

And keep in mind that there are some smart minds behind this experimental move. They include a recent addition to the MLB brass with the hiring of Theo Epstein, the former Red Sox and Cubs exec, as a consultant.

"Fans, players and many others in the baseball community have expressed an interest in seeing more regular action on the field," Epstein said in an MLB press release. "Therefore, it's important that we use the 2021 season to explore various ways to create more frequent contact - and the increased action and athleticism on display that will follow. We are grateful that the Atlantic League - which has been at the forefront of successful rule experiments in the past - has agreed to test a 12-inch increase in the distance between the pitching rubber and home plate during the second half of the season. We expect to learn a great deal about the impacts of such a change and whether an adjustment to this critical field dimension is worth potential future consideration at other levels of professional baseball."

So let's take a look and do it in an independent league that won't impact the majors or minors, but at the same time will give us a sample produced by professional players. It's not like they can study this in Little League or American Legion ball. Or even in college baseball.

If there are concerns about possible pitching injuries with this change, MLB has looked into that as well.

Said MLB in the press release announcing this: "This change was also determined to be safe, as it does not require the pitcher to alter pitching mechanics and there is no evidence of increased injury risk. The American Sports Medicine Institute conducted a study in October of 2019 that measured the impact of pitching distance on biomechanics. In the study, high-level collegiate baseball players threw from distances of 60'6", 62'6" and 63'8". No significant differences in key measures of rotational motion (kinetics) or acceleration (kinematics) were observed among the varying pitching distances. In addition, ball velocity and strike percentage remained consistent."

At the same time the Atlantic League will also implement another experimental rule for the full 2021 season. All teams will begin games using the designated hitter, but when they take their starting pitcher out, they lose the DH for the rest of that game.

According to MLB, nearly 90 percent of pitching starts in the major leagues in 2020 lasted less than seven innings. By linking the DH to the starting pitcher, the rule aims to incentivize teams to leave their starting pitchers in longer, increase the value of starters who can work deeper into games and increase the strategic element in the late innings of a game.

The O's head west: The Orioles wasted two decent starting pitching outings from Matt Harvey and Bruce Zimmermann as they lost both ends of a doubleheader to Seattle. They scored just three runs on seven hits over 14 innings.

The Orioles went 1-3 in the Seattle series, 1-6 on the first homestand and are 2-8 since sweeping Boston to start the new season.

On Thursday, Trey Mancini got the O's into the lead in Game 1 with a two-run homer in the first inning. But the O's scored just one run on four hits in the rest of the two games.

So, yeah, not nearly good enough.

This team should score some runs this year, but it didn't happen yesterday. They only had two at-bats in the doubleheader with runners in scoring position.

Center fielder Cedric Mullins went 0-for-6 in the twinbill as his 11-game hitting streak this season and his 15-gamer dating to last year both ended.

Tonight at Globe Life Field, they start a three-game series and five-game road trip looking for some runs and some wins.