The pitch clock debuted in MLB and Manny Machado was its first victim

Baseball’s newest timing device, the pitch clock, made its major league debut Friday during a limited schedule of early spring training games and, interestingly, was Manny Machadothe All-Star slugger for the San Diego Padres, and not a pitcher, who was penalized for the first violation of the new rules.

Machado found out the hard way that the shot clock works both ways. He wasn’t fully in the batter’s box and alert against the Seattle Mariners lefty, Robbie Ray, when the 15-second clock ran to less than 8 seconds in the bottom of the first inning. The referee Ryan Blakney He called timeout and signaled strike one against Machado, who finished second in the NL MVP race last season.

Although Machado was taken aback, he was unfazed as he got the first of two singles in the game.

“Maybe I have to make a big adjustment. I could be 0-1 many times this year, man,” Machado said. “It’s super fast. It is definitely a period of adjustment. It will go down in the history books.”

The shot clock is among several new rules designed to improve the pace of the game. Players will have 30 seconds to resume play between batters. Between pitches, pitchers have 15 seconds when there are no runners and 20 seconds if there is a runner. The pitcher must start his pitch before the clock expires. After a pitch, the clock starts over when the pitcher recovers the ball, the catcher and batter are in the circle around home plate, and play is ready to resume.

Batters must be in the box and alert to the pitcher with at least eight seconds left. Batters may call timeout once per plate appearance, stopping the countdown.

When a pitcher misses a pitch on time, the penalty is an automatic ball. When a batter isn’t ready on time, it’s an automatic strike.

“It’s going to be a little tough,” Padres starter Nick Martinez said. “I have to find some areas where I can save some time so that I can have some when I need it.”

Martinez said the clock will affect how pitches are called.

“Today, the way to take the pressure off was to have the PitchCom (pitcher-catcher communication device) with me,” he said. “For most of the time (Luis Campusano) was dictating the game, but if he had a pitch that stood out to me, he would just press it. I didn’t wait for him to call him, he said ‘I want this’. I did it several times. There are times when I like to slow down the game tempo, so it will be interesting.”

“I thought I wasn’t even going to think about it today and I was definitely aware of that.”added Martinez, who will be moving into the rotation after playing a hybrid role last year. “It took me a bit by surprise. It’s definitely going to be a period of adjustment.”