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Less than an hour after he had to watch his team lose to the Royals in part because of MLB’s — and I quote — “whackest sh***” ever rule, Mike Clevinger took to Twitter to voice his displeasure.
This new extra inning rule is the whackest s*** I’ve ever seen, do you have any idea how hard it is to get a runner to second off the back end of a bullpen?!!! #ThisIsntTravelBall #MakeThemEarnIt @MLB
— ❂ Mike ℕ ℍ ℕ Clevinger ❂ (@Mike_Anthony13) July 26, 2020
Of course, the Indians didn’t only lose because of the rule (and you can read more about that in this handsome recap), and that’s probably not the only reason Clevinger doesn’t like it, but that doesn’t mitigate the whack-ass factor of the new rule, anyway.
He apparently vetted his frustrations during his postgame media session, too, which I cannot wait to hear:
Mike Clevinger: "This isn’t travel ball. You know how hard it is to get a runner on second base off the back end of any bullpen, how incredibly hard that is? And now all of a sudden you just get a guy on second base with a guy like Karinchak on the mound. I’m not happy about it."
— Zack Meisel (@ZackMeisel) July 26, 2020