MESA, Ariz. - Managers often aren’t keen on rule changes, especially those announced less than six weeks from the regular season. In the case of the pitchless intentional walk, though, Bob Melvin of the A’s is fine with the decision.
Melvin cited a game at Texas last year in which he had Marc Rzepczynski come in to intentionally walk Adrian Beltre to load the bases - then Rzepczynski hit Rougned Odor to send in the game-winning run.
Melvin took some heat for the decision to have the new reliever issue the intentional walk, possibly throwing Rzepczynski off, but both Melvin and Rzepczynski said at the time that a big-league reliever should be able to handle that duty without incident.