After an initial grace period to give players a chance to adjust, a new pitch clock format was enforced in minor league baseball starting on Friday.
The new experimental rules at Triple-A allow for just 14 seconds between pitches with the bases empty, and 19 seconds when runners are on. A violation results in an automatic ball, which does mean that the batter is awarded a walk if a violation happens on a 3-ball count.
Walks surrendered on a clock violation don’t show up any differently than standard ones, but a few of the 14 walks issued by Louisville on Friday were due to clock violations, including two of the five walks issued by former Royals pitcher Kyle Zimmer.