“Bomba squad” inspires new MLB scoring rules

In a controversial press release the other day, the MLB Commissioner’s office announced a new scoring rule, targeting the Minnesota Twins. That release is reprinted below

In the interest of parity and pace of play, Rob Manfred, the commissioner of baseball, is pleased to announce the “Bomba rule.” Since the Minnesota Twins baseball organization is hitting a record number of home runs, and having too much fun, we felt we needed to do something. This office has always taken the opportunity to reduce the amount of fun in baseball, and we have also received numerous complaints from other teams. The Baltimore Orioles registered a complaint, due to the crippling impact the Twins had on their budget allocation for new baseballs. The Chicago White Sox also complained, stating that the level of competition is unfair to their pitchers. Trevor Bauer is also on record with a complaint, but that was just to satisfy his weekly allotment of whining about “white-ass dude-bro issues.” Tigers Manager Ron Gardenhire’s diatribe on his issues with the Twins offense is unfit for print.

With these complaints in mind, the office of the commissioner has decreed that any home run hit by a member of the Minnesota Twins organization will now count for half of its previous scoring value—e.g. a home run with no one on base now counts for ¹⁄₂ of a run, and a home run with one man on counts for one run.

We believe that this will help to keep scores lower, improve parity and competition among AL Central teams, and decrease the amount of fun in baseball. We know that all-important millennial audience doesn’t care about the score of the game anyway, but we hope to win them back with a “selfie day” promotion.

Unfortunately, due to the impact of Willians Astudillo at Triple-A Rochester, we feel we must extend this rule to the entire Twins organization, and not just the major league level.

The Twins issued the following comment in response:

While we are very disappointed in the ruling by the commissioner’s office, ultimately we are accustomed to being screwed over by the league. As a mid-market team, we don’t have the kind of clout that the Yankees do, so we shouldn’t be hitting home runs like them. Besides, the Vikings still get screwed over worse than we do.

Eddie Rosario, the Twins left-fielder, and inspiration for the term “bomba squad” had a bit more optimistic answer:

We’ll just have to hit more bombas now. Everyone is hitting bombas, and everyone is having fun, so we’ll just hit more bombas and have more fun.

Not everyone around the Twins organization was phased by the news. Recently retired Twin Joe Mauer didn’t seem to see an issue

“Well, gosh. I don’t see why it’s such a big darn deal. Like mom always says, you just gotta make the best of things. I’d usually just poke a single out there, because I don’t want to be a show-off or anything.”

At Twinkie Town, we believe this is ultimately unfair to the Twins, but our writers had mixed opinions.

imakesandwichesforaliving:

“Oh MLB is probably doing that because some small-market team is actually better than those /bleep/-ing Yankees. Who wants to watch the Yankees lose? Only Twins fans.”

Jon Gamble:

“You know, it was only a matter of time. Home runs are just too easy to be worth as much as they are. It really wasn’t fair to the rest of the league. Piranha ball should be rewarded instead of this hitting the ball over the fence garbage. Nick Punto didn’t slide headfirst into first base for this trash to take over baseball”

TJ Gorsegner:

I should have known it was too good to be true. The Twins have been a constant source of disappointment in my life. One of these days, I’ll just switch the site over to being a blog about little debbie snack cakes.

Hayden A:

“Serves them right. The only thing that would make this better is if they took away the runs entirely for bat flips”

We also reached out to some of our AL Central sister sites for comment. They responded in a typically defeatist fashion.

Rob Rogacki, Manager, Bless You Boys:

“It wouldn’t make a bit of fucking difference against our shit pitching staff”

Ashley MacLennan, Editor, Bless You Boys (and all-around baseball supergirl):

“Best idea Rob Manfred has ever had! We might even win a game now!”

Matt Lyons, Managing Editor, Let’s Go Tribe:

It’s fine I didn’t want to come to your cool AL Central party anyway

(I totally forgot to ask them for a quote, so that’s the response I got)

What do you think of the new “Bomba Rule?”