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The time the Orioles failed at intentionally walking Miguel Cabrera

The intentional walk as we know it is dead. MLB announced back on Tuesday that, starting this season, pitchers would no longer have to actually lob four pitches out of the strike zone for the batter to get first base. From here on, at least unless they change their minds, an intentional walk will just happen with a signal from the dugout and the batter gets the base automatically.

Some people out there have very strong feelings about this change, probably because it is change and we all have our things where we fear change. Although I’m not going to lose much sleep over not having to watch any more intentional walks play out all the way, I have to admit that baseball is losing at least a little something by this change.