A couple of games into the exhibition season, SSS duty geezer Leigh Allan and his son and, for a few months, downtown Chicago correspondent, Will, start a cast of bits and pieces by looking at the impact of the new rules on games so far. Which is to say, so far, really not all that much.

There have been a few cases of pitch-clock violations, one ending a game, but only one in a White Sox game, and that minor. Though it’s too early to tell, Steve Stone thinks the clock will work to the advantage of pitchers, even though it gives them less time to recover from the strain of the previous pitch — a point worthy of discussion.

There has not been a surge in stolen bases resulting from the limit on pickoff attempts, or from the slightly larger bases — though maybe players are taking it easy on that front pending being more stretched out, and in one White Sox case, the goal of eliminating over-slides went for naught (yes, that was you, Romy).

On one weighty matter, the duo discuss the poundage of Lance Lynn (yuck!) and Eloy Jiménez (nice!). On another, they shudder at comments to the media made by Mike Clevinger (when the hell will MLB finally deal with him?) and Tim Anderson, who was waaay too sensitive about past criticism.

As for what happened in games, two hits by Oscar Colás were praised, and the continued appalling lack of defensive fundamentals by the Sox scorned — pop-ups in front of the plate aren’t really supposed to be a challenge beyond T-ball, guys. But the duo agree it is very early, so there should be plenty of time for Pedro Grifol to teach the team what a cutoff man is.

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