MLB Opening Day is (technically) here! Baseball season starts tonight, as the San Francisco Giants take on the New York Yankees at 8:05 p.m. ET. The rest of the league will follow tomorrow afternoon.
At some point, history will be made: we’ll see the first ball-strike call challenged and reviewed by a new high-tech system called ABS. Honus Wagner is turning in his grave.
Under Review
For more than a century, baseball’s home plate umpires have called a ball or strike based on an interpretation of a vague, loosely defined strike zone. These subjective calls decided at-bats, games, seasons and pennants — and, naturally, stirred endless debate.
Now, finally, there is an answer. For the first time, teams will be able to challenge balls and strike calls through the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system.
Here is a brief explainer of how it works:
1. After any pitch, the call can be challenged by one of three people — the batter, the pitcher or the catcher.
2. The player has basically a two-second window to decide. The players cannot seek guidance from their coaches, their teammates or rogue fans screaming from the stands.
3. The system will then determine if the pitch was a ball or a strike, with the strike zone now defined as a pitch that sails over home plate and that’s between 27% and 53.5% high of a batter’s height.
Once a review is requested, the stadium scoreboard will show the system’s ruling on whether the pitch passed through the strike zone.
Each team will get two challenges a game and will keep them if they’re right. In theory, a team can keep challenging until it gets two calls wrong.
There has already been much discussion around strategy — which players will be empowered to challenge calls? When’s the best time to challenge? For more on the ABS system and the strategy involved, read our NBC News story here.
The Comeback Tour
Ilia Malinin made clear his post-Olympic focus minutes after leaving the ice at the curtain-closing exhibition gala in Milan.
“My next goal,” he said last month, “is to have a redemption skate at the World Championships.”
Malinin, who finished eighth overall after a shocking performance at the Olympics, repeated that word — redemption — in interviews across the Italian city and in a diary-like social media post.
Malinin, who won 14 competitions in a row, hopes to start a new win streak by claiming a third consecutive world title.
Worlds, which air live on NBC Sports and Peacock, begin today with the women’s short program followed by the pairs’ short. Malinin competes tomorrow in the short and Saturday in the free skate.
For more on Malinin’s journey, click here to read Nick Zaccardi from NBC Sports.
What We’re Watching
On the eve of the real baseball Opening Day, don’t blame us if we try to mix in some basketball and hockey. In the NBA, there’s a potential NBA Finals preview tonight, as the Thunder play the Celtics. At the same time, the Bruins and the Sabres play one another. The Sabres are among the league’s best, and the Bruins are jockeying for the postseason.
But the headliner is Yankees vs. Giants and two aces going head-to-head. Max Fried vs. Logan Webb. Will someone hit a ball in McCovey Cove? We’ll be tuning in.
All times are Eastern:
- 7:30 p.m.: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Boston Celtics, on NBC Sports Boston
- 7:30 p.m.: Boston Bruins vs. Buffalo Sabres, on TNT/HBO Max
- 8:05 p.m.: New York Yankees vs. San Francisco Giants, on Netflix
What We’re Reading
Mohamed Salah will leave Liverpool after this season. This follows a tumultuous period when he ranted publicly about being benched.
Syracuse hired Gerry McNamara, who was on its 2003 title team, to be its next basketball coach.
Real Madrid superstar Kylian Mbappe’s knee injury was misdiagnosed after team officials performed an MRI on the wrong leg.
On Tuesday, the NBA players union called for the end of the NBA’s 65-game eligibility rule for major awards, in the wake of Detroit’s Cade Cunningham being diagnosed with a collapsed lung.
Frank Thomas, one of the best players in Chicago White Sox history, filed a civil lawsuit against the team, Nike and Fanatics over the “unauthorized use of his likeness on uniforms,” ESPN writes.
That’s it for now! We’ll be back tomorrow.