Houston led majors with 35 pitch clock violations, Washington’s Finnegan topped individuals with 11

NEW YORK (AP) — Houston led the major leagues with 35 pitch clock violations and Washington’s Kyle Finnegan topped individuals with 11.

Violations by pitchers, batters and catchers totaled 602, down from 1,048 in 2023, the first season of the timer. There were 465 by pitchers, 133 by batters and four by catchers, down from 747, 286 and 15.

Washington was second with 31, followed by Arizona (30), the Los Angeles Angels and Milwaukee (29 each), Pittsburgh (27), the New York Mets (26) and Atlanta and the New York Yankees (25 each).

Colorado, Kansas City and Oakland had the fewest at 10 apiece.

Finnegan was followed by Toronto’s Chris Bassitt (eight); Texas’ John Gray, Atlanta’s Reynaldo López and the Mets’ Jose Quintana (seven each) and Cleveland’s Tyler Beede, Houston’s Framber Valdez and the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto (five each).

Andy Pages of the Dodgers topped batters with five violations, followed by Washington’s Ildemaro Vargas (four) and Houston’s Yordan Alvarez, Philadelphia’s Nick Castellanos, Pittsburgh’s Oneil Cruz and Cincinnati’s Santiago Espinal (three each).

In the first year of the clock, Pittsburgh led pitcher violations with 41 and Philadelphia reliever Craig Kimbrel had the most individual violations with 13.

There were also 34 pitcher violations of the disengagement limit this year and five batter timeout violations.

There were just two defensive shift violations, down from 26 in the first year of the rule requiring two infielders to be on the infield dirt, on each side of second base. The violations were by Minnesota shortstop Carlos Correa against Cleveland in the sixth inning on May 17 and by Boston shortstop Ceddanne Rafaela against Tampa Bay in the second inning on May 20.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB