The Cubs lefty was dinged with a pitch clock violation in the second inning of Tuesday's 6-3 loss to the Brewers.
As Major League Baseball has rolled out its new pitch clock for the 2023 season, several pitchers have commented that it has yet to really impact the timing of their sequencing. However, Chicago Cubs starter Drew Smyly, who made his first Cactus League start on Tuesday, saw the pitch clock run down to zero with one out in the second inning.
Smyly had a couple of instances in the first inning where the clock had one or two seconds left before he started his windup.
"The pitch clock was way more of an adjustment than I thought it would be for me, to be honest with you," he said.
"I feel like I'm a pretty fast pitcher, I thought I was, but I felt myself definitely being rushed throughout these two innings, so it's just an adjustment that everybody's gonna have to figure it out."
The 33-year-old danced around a leadoff double from Christian Yelich in the first inning, finishing the inning with a sweeping strikeout of Brewers' first baseman Rowdy Tellez.
However, Smyly ran into trouble in the second inning. Aside from his pitch clock violation, the southpaw allowed four hits in the inning, including a solo home run and two doubles.
At times, he was close to running out the pitch clock and threw pitches his catcher didn't know were coming.
"Honestly, I think that three, four, or five pitches where I just threw picked my leg up and threw it. I don't even know if (Tucker Barnhart) knew what pitch I was throwing," the big lefty said.
The Brewers took a 2-0 lead as Smyly completed his two innings of work. He finished with a final stat line of: 2.0 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, and 2 SO.
After re-signing with the Cubs in the offseason, the Little Rock, Ark., native will look to build upon an outstanding second half of the 2022 campaign.
Smyly went 5-3 with a 2.83 ERA, fanning 52 batters over 57.1 innings of work after the All-Star break.
Like every other player, he'll have a few more opportunities this spring to get the timing down, quite literally.
How will he adjust going forward?
"I could have done a much better job of stepping off and using my disengagements. I don't think I did that once," Smyly said.
"I think pitchers and catchers are going to do a much better job of game planning before the start so that everyone's on a good page of what you might want to throw."
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