MLB Notebook: ABS system an early success; Chase DeLauter, other rookies off to hot starts

Welcome to a new column I'm doing this season, where I take a bi-weekly look around Major League Baseball to fill you in on the league-wide trends, surging teams, and top individual performances. There will be some highlight clips, some criticisms, and some personal analysis of where I think the game is at and/or going. My hope is that, if you've had a busy week or haven't been able to watch as many games as you'd like, this article can be a great way to keep up with what's happening in Major League Baseball.

So, let's stop wasting time and dive right in. ⚾️ Baseball is back on NBC: MLB returns to NBC and Peacock in 2026 ! In addition to becoming the exclusive home of Sunday Night Baseball, NBC Sports will broadcast MLB Sunday Leadoff, “Opening Day” and Labor Day primetime games, the first round of the MLB Draft, the entire Wild Card round of the postseason, and much more.

MLB Injury Report: Andrew Vaughn suffers hamate fracture, Nick Lodolo aims to return next week Jorge Montanez breaks down all of the relevant injury news around the league over the last week. Jorge Montanez , ABS is off to a Successful Start This season, Major League Baseball adopted an Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System that had been used in the minor leagues in previous seasons. We wrote up a detailed explainer of what that system is , which you should check out, but essentially, every game, each team gets two requests to challenge a ball or strike call if they think the umpire got it wrong.

Only the pitcher, catcher, or batter is able to challenge, and the request for a challenge must be made within two seconds of the ball/strike being called. If a team wins the challenge, they will retain their challenge. The first successful ABS challenge occurred on NBC and Peacock and was initiated by Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez in the third inning on a 3-2 pitch that was initially called a ball against pitcher Freddy Peralta.