White Plains, MD – The local minor league baseball team, the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, have officially notched their team name in the sport’s history books with one play in the sixth inning of their July 13 game. With the addition of a handful of new and experimental rules added last week as a result of the Major League Baseball(MLB)-Independent Atlantic League partnership, the Blue Crabs would become one of the first teams to implement the rules in season play when they faced off against the Lancaster Barnstormers.
The new rules that are currently being examined through this addition consist of: requiring the pitcher to step off his rubber to try and pickoff a runner, allowing only a single foul bunt attempt at a two strike count before calling a strike, an improvement to the swing check to favor the batter, and finally allowing batters to steal first base on any pitch not caught by the catcher.
It wouldn’t take longer than six innings for Blue Crabs’ outfielder Tony Thomas to take advantage of the last of those new rule additions. The right-handed batter would capitalize on a wild pitch from Barnstormer Alejandro Chacin, pausing briefly before taking off down the stretch to first.
For the first time in baseball history a player stole first base thanks to the Atlantic League-MLB partnership rule changes! @ESPNAssignDesk pic.twitter.com/yj4FkcZg6O
— SoMD Blue Crabs (@BlueCrabs) July 14, 2019
Thomas will now be known as the first player in “baseball history” to steal first under these new rules, and the Blue Crabs organization took to twitter to share the moment with fans.
Tony Thomas made baseball history by stealing first base last night. Here what he had to say. #GameChanger pic.twitter.com/BQdXRvhp4D
— SoMD Blue Crabs (@BlueCrabs) July 14, 2019
The Blue Crabs would go on to win their fifth-straight game in a row (up to six-straight as of publication date), beating the Barnstormers by a score of 7-2 and recording all of their scoring in the last four innings. They would go on to total 10 hits as opposed to the Stormers’ five, and make three errors compared to the Stormers’ two.
The Blue Crabs are now sitting eight games back of first in the “Freedom Division”, holding an unfortunate record of 28-44 with a win percentage of .389, putting them second to last out of all eight minor league teams. Hopefully, this winning tear that the team has been on will continue as the team has officially entered into the second half of their 140-game season.
Stay tuned for more coverage of the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs’ 2019 season.
Contact Zach at zach.hill@thebaynet.com.