The image of Ronald Acuña Jr. stealing second base and then holding the bag above his head in triumphant glory is a signature moment from the Atlanta Braves’ 2023 season.
The steal did more than make Acuña the charter member of Major League Baseball’s 40-70 club, however. It also set him up to score the go-ahead run in a 6-5 win over the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 27.
The game of baseball has changed, and players with game-changing speed are taking advantage.
Fans only now turning their attention to baseball for the postseason will find a different game than in recent seasons. Players are running much more than a year ago, thanks to new rules that also promise to have an impact on the playoffs. There were 3,503 stolen bases in the regular season, a dramatic jump of more than 1,000 from a year ago. It’s the highest total since 1987’s record of 3,585.
Expect the rampant running to continue in the playoffs.
“Guys are going to be turning it loose like they have all year,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “Teams like Arizona are going to be flying all over the place. I don’t really see a change from the season.”
Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said Andrew Stevenson’s speed was a big factor in the reserve outfielder earning one of the last roster spots for the best-of-three wild-card matchup with the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League playoffs.
“I think speed and defense is always something to think about in a postseason scenario,” Baldelli said Tuesday ahead of the opening game in Minneapolis.
“You start getting in these close ballgames in the eighth or ninth inning, you need a run. Your leadoff guy on, putting something like that in the game creates a lot of issues for the other team. We know it because we experience it on that side of the ball, too. Everyone sees it. Everyone feels it and knows that there’s a lot of ways to score when you have an elite baserunner out there.”
The new rules accentuate the speed factor.
MLB introduced bigger bases, a time clock for pitches and, most notably, a rule limiting pitchers to just two disengagements — such as a pickoff throw — from the rubber per plate appearance. The bigger bags slightly reduced the distance between bases, but that distance shrinks more with baserunners feeling empowered to take bigger leads.
Acuña led the majors with 73 stolen bases while hitting 41 home runs during the recently completed regular season. The Braves stole 132 bases, a big jump from their 87 in 2022, and still ranked only 10th in the majors. The Cincinnati Reds were first with 190, followed by the Arizona Diamondbacks (166), Kansas City Royals (163) and Tampa Bay Rays (160). The Diamondbacks and Rays earned wild-card berths in the playoffs, while the Braves have a bye for the opening round and will host a National League Division Series starting Saturday.
It’s a dramatic change from 2022, when the Texas Rangers led the majors with 128 steals, a total that would have ranked only 12th this season. The Rangers stole two bases in Tuesday’s 4-0 win over the Rays to open that American League wild-card matchup, and they stole two more in a 7-1 win Wednesday to sweep.
Acuña, a leading NL MVP candidate along with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Mookie Betts, supplies speed and power as the face of the game’s new look.
“I can’t wait until we get that thing going to see what he can do,” Snitker said of Acuña on the postseason stage. “Great ones, they have that penchant to love that spotlight, and he’s one of the great ones. … The one place that kid is not going to feel pressure is between those lines. He’s in his world there.”
Acuña and the Braves, whose 104-58 record was the best in the majors this season and secured home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, will face either the Miami Marlins or the Philadelphia Phillies in an NLDS.
Braves reliever A.J. Minter said pitchers adjusted to the new rules relatively quickly. Even so, he’s wary of a postseason game being decided by a rule that wasn’t part of the game a year ago.
“I would hate for a crucial Game 5, Game 7 in the postseason to come down to a pitch-clock violation,” Minter said. “Hopefully the umpires will have a little bit of feel on that. But at the same time, we want them to be consistent with it. Hopefully we’re not in that scenario where that does happen.”
It’s a Mets win after all
NEW YORK — The New York Mets were awarded a 1-0 win over the visiting Marlins in the game suspended by rain on Sept. 28, with Miami’s two-run rally in the ninth voided because the inning was not completed.
The game would have been resumed Monday had it impacted the postseason but was not because the Marlins were assured of the second wild card for the NL playoffs and the Diamondbacks were locked into the third wild card.
MLB, after consulting the Elias Sports Bureau, said Wednesday the score reverted to 1-0 under 7.02 (b) (4) (A) of the Official Baseball Rules, which deals with suspended games.
“If one team is ahead, the team that is ahead shall be declared the winner (unless the game is called while an inning is in progress and before the inning is completed, and the visiting team has scored one or more runs to take the lead, and the home team has not retaken the lead, in which case the score upon the completion of the last full inning shall stand),” the rule states.
Miami’s Bryan De La Cruz singled leading off the ninth against Grant Hartwig, and then Garrett Hampson struck out. Jazz Chisholm Jr. greeted Anthony Kay with a double, then scored on Yuli Gurriel’s pinch-hit single. Xavier Edwards flied out, and Jon Berti’s singled advanced Gurriel to second base before the game was interrupted by rain at 9:41 p.m. Umpires waited until 12:58 a.m., then suspended the game.
All those statistics have been wiped out.
“We obviously like to win every game. I’m OK with not going back there and getting into the postseason,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said before the start of the second game of a wild-card matchup against the host Phillies on Wednesday night.
“I’m happy that Major League Baseball did not make us go back there. That would have really put us in a difficult position heading into Philly here before the postseason. So I thought Major League Baseball made the right move.”
Hartwig gets a win, raising his 2023 record to 5-2. Miami’s Jesús Luzardo drops to 10-10 after allowing a leadoff single in the eighth to Brett Baty, who scored on Rafael Ortega’s two-out single against Andrew Nardi.
Miami finished 84-78, earning the second wild card on a tiebreaker over the Diamondbacks because the Marlins won the season series 4-2.
New York wound up 75-87, its poorest record since 2017, and was fourth in the NL East behind six-time reigning champion Atlanta, Philadelphia (90-72) and Miami. The big-spending Mets finished ahead of only the Washington Nationals (71-91) in the division.
Mets manager Buck Showalter, who was fired Sunday, gets an additional win. He was 176-148 in two seasons with the club and has a 1,727-1,665 record in 22 seasons as an MLB manager, including stints with the New York Yankees (1992-95), Diamondbacks (1998-2000), Texas Rangers (2003-06) and Baltimore Orioles (2010-18).