FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 Willson Contreras will be the answer to a deep-cut Red Sox trivia question some day.<\/p>\n
Who made the first ABS challenge in franchise history?<\/p>\n
Manager Alex Cora has instructed his players to be aggressive with using the new Automatic Ball-Strike challenge system in spring training games, particularly with more than a dozen players leaving camp in the coming weeks for the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n
So it was Contreras who requested the first-ever Red Sox challenge with two outs in the top of the first on Saturday. And he was successful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt great. I knew it was low, that\u2019s (why) I was convicted on the challenge,\u201d Contreras said.<\/p>\n
A longtime catcher, Boston\u2019s new first baseman feels he might have an advantage as the league adapts to this new technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s different when you\u2019re catching than hitting, but when you\u2019re a first baseman you don\u2019t know the strike zone, the umpire, anything like that,\u201d Contreras said. \u201cYou just know your strike zone, you\u2019ve been playing for so many years that you have an idea of what is (a) ball and strike. But it definitely helps, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ABS challenge system gives teams two challenges per game, to be used only by the pitcher, catcher, or hitter. If a player challenges successfully, their team retains the opportunity to do so again. In extra innings, teams without challenges remaining will receive one per frame.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a new form of entertainment for fans, the first form of consequence for umpires and a new layer of education and preparation for players. Teams are conducting meetings with their players about strategy and impulse control during spring training.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s huge, I think it can change the course of a game, especially late in the game,\u201d Roman Anthony said. \u201cI challenged quite a bit (in Triple-A). \u2026 It\u2019s great for me. It\u2019s turned a lot of strikeouts into walks, or it\u2019s changed a lot of counts for me where I was able to kind of reset the count and do damage. So I think it should be great for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Red Sox aren\u2019t making it explicitly verboten, but they\u2019ve made it clear\u00a0they don\u2019t want their pitchers challenging.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d Payton Tolle, who started Saturday\u2019s 7-2 victory at the Minnesota Twins\u2019 complex across town, said emphatically when asked about pitchers challenging. \u201cI think everything\u2019s a strike! It could be four balls off and I\u2019d think it\u2019s a strike. So I\u2019m going to leave that to the higher powers of catchers.\u201d<\/p>\n
For younger players like Anthony and Tolle, who began learning the challenge system while it was tested in the minor leagues, this spring training is simply a continuation of their education.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was something that was new to me right when I got to Triple-A at the end of \u201824,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cJust kind of getting comfortable with it, getting used to it, I feel like sometimes I forget it\u2019s even there until somebody uses it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But ABS will be, pun intended, a challenge. Even Anthony, known to be even-keeled beyond his 21 years, admitted he got greedy with the challenge system in the minors. That was all well and good on the farm, where the focus is on player development, not winning. But in the majors, the new challenge system can win or lose a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were times where I got a little greedy for sure,\u201d Anthony said with a grin. \u201cBut at the same time, I feel like I have a good feel for the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest thing, not just for me but for everyone, is just that the situation of the game is huge for challenging,\u201d Anthony continued. \u201cI think when you lose (challenges) too early, I\u2019ve seen it kind of go the other way where you\u2019re late in the game and you don\u2019t have one. \u2026 I think they\u2019re going to be a slept-on component of this game, that people are going to realize how much they really matter, I think once the regular season starts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contreras\u2019 successful challenge was met with gleeful reactions from the Red Sox.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody in the dugout (was) hooting and hollering about it,\u201d Tolle said.<\/p>\n
Contreras, who recently said his new teammates made him feel like a brother as soon as he reported to camp, also saw their reactions to his successful challenge as further evidence that there\u2019s something different about these Red Sox.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir reaction was priceless,\u201d the former Cubs and Cardinals star told the Herald. \u201cI\u2019ve been playing for three teams. This team for me, it seems like they\u2019re really special.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery guy that comes here, that comes up, is trying to do the job. They work with a focus, with a goal, and it\u2019s really hard to see that with a lot of guys. Because a lot of guys might come to the field just to come and do whatever they need to do, but this team is different, because they give goals. And we\u2019re working toward something, which is the World Series.\u201d<\/p>\n
To get there, the Red Sox will need to overcome the usual challenges and adapt to this new one. That\u2019s what spring training is for.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we get it wrong, this is the right time to challenge,\u201d Contreras said, \u201cand if we get it right, it\u2019s applause.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 Willson Contreras will be the answer to a deep-cut Red Sox trivia question some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[76509,5,48,822,60,3190,4,151,148,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-585797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-automatic-ball-strike-challenge-system","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-boston-red-sox","11":"tag-minnesota","12":"tag-minnesota-twins","13":"tag-minnesotatwins","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-spring-training","16":"tag-twins","17":"tag-willson-contreras"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116111860307549645","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}