Shane Baz leads pitch clock violations for 2nd straight season and José Caballero tops batters

NEW YORK (AP) — Baltimore’s Shane Baz led in pitch clock violations for the second straight season and the New York Yankees’ José Caballero topped batters while the Orioles and San Francisco Giants tied for the high among teams.

Baz’s six violations for the Orioles was the high among pitchers, the same total he had for Tampa Bay in 2025.

Miami’s Eury Pérez and Texas’ Kumar Rocker tied for second with five apiece. Anthony Nunez, Cade Cavalli, Yoendrys Gómez, Camilo Doval and George Soriano had four each.

Among batters, Caballero led with four. MLB decided his routine of waiting to acknowledge the pitcher just before the pitch clock reached eight seconds amounted to deception, prompting squabbles between Caballero and umpires.

Chase DeLauter, Jung Hoo Lee aand Luis Lara had three each.

Baltimore and San Francisco tied for the overall lead with 19 clock violations, followed by Houston and San Francisco with 18 apiece, and the Los Angeles Dodgers and Yankees with 17 each.

Philadelphia had a low of five and the Rays had six.

Violations by batters, pitchers and catchers dropped from 1,048 when the clock was instituted in 2023 to 602 the following season, 465 in 2025 and 387 this year.

Pitchers committed 290 violations this season, batters 92 and catchers five. The hitters’ total included 12 timeout violations.

There were just two defensive shift violations, against Rays second baseman Ben Williamson with Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers at the plate on April 3 and against Orioles second baseman Jeremiah Jackson with Toronto’s Sean Keys at the plate on Sept. 23.

After 26 shift violations in the first year of the rule in 2023, there were two in 2024 and one in 2025.

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