Yahoo Sports Mets’ Pete Alonso: Pitch clock is something I ‘just need to get used to’
The pitch clock speeding up the pace of play and the larger bases shortening the distance between bases has been all the talk around spring training games, but it is going to take Mets first baseman Pete Alonso a few more at-bats to form on opinion on baseball’s new rules.
“I don’t know just yet,” he told ESPN’s Buster Olney during Monday’s game when asked if he likes MLB's big changes.
Alonso, who homered in his first spring training game, added he’s still “kinda getting used to” the new rules and will need a better feel for it during games to form an opinon.
“It’s just a little rule change. It’s just something that I’m gonna need to get used to. But we’ll see. We’ll see as time unravels,” Alonso said. “I haven’t really had to change really anything too much. Just need to be cognizant of the clock, but, so far so good.”
On the defensive end, the first baseman said the new rules for pickoffs and bigger bases will have an impact on the basepaths, but it sounds like manager Buck Showalter has something planned for would-be base stealers.
“Stolen bases are gonna be encouraged with the bigger bags and the pitch clock and the amount of limitations there are to pitchers [throwing over], but also there’s some ways to get around that,” Alonso said. “There’s gonna be some different wrinkles in the game and I know that Buck is gonna have a few things up his sleeve.”
Olney said the Mets’ skipper was raving about Alonso’s physical shape when he arrived at camp, but Alonso said there were no big changes to his offseason workout regiment.
“I didn’t really change a whole lot, but the one thing I did do on a daily basis [was] the first thing I did in the morning was run two miles as fast as I could,” he said.
“I stayed pretty consistent with that… I just wanted to see how far I could push myself mentally because I want to see how I can evolve myself and if running two miles in the morning every day in the offseason can do that, kind of, help me find another level mentally, that’s something I wanted to try and tinker with and do."
