Royals’ Zack Greinke was so focused on pickoffs Sunday that he lost focus on batters

Pete Grathoff
·1 min read

Pitch clocks, bigger bases and no shifts are among the many rule changes coming to Major League Baseball this season.

There’s also this: a limit on the number of times a pitcher can focus on a baserunner.

For each plate appearance, MLB said, a pitcher gets two chances to either try a pickoff attempt and/or a step off the rubber. If a runner advances during the plate appearance, that number resets to zero.

Royals pitcher Zack Greinke had been so sharp this spring that he wasn’t able to hone his pickoff move. Before Sunday, Greinke had given up five hits and a walk in seven innings pitched.

“I’ve been complaining, actually, that people haven’t been getting on so I can’t work on pickoff moves all spring,” Greinke told the Royals website. “So wanting to work on pickoffs. That’s what spring training’s usually for, stuff like that.”

He got that chance Sunday. Greinke allowed eight hits, walked two and gave up nine runs in 2 1/3 innings in the Royals’ 13-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

David Adler, a Statcast researcher for Major League Baseball, noted Greinke made a whopping 10 pickoff attempts on Sunday. That’s three more pickoff attempts than outs in Greinke’s outing.

Adler said Greinke threw at least once to all three bases.

“I wanted to pitch from the windup now,” Greinke told the Royals’ website. “So I’ll just do another pickoff and let him take third and pitch from the windup. … So mainly, I was thinking about way too many things instead of getting guys out.”

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