After a number of baseball’s best pitchers were ruled out for the season over the weekend, the head of the MLB Players Association is blaming the league’s pitch clock rules for making the problem worse.

“Despite unanimous player opposition and significant concerns regarding health and safety, the Commissioner’s Office reduced the length of the pitch clock last December, just one season removed from imposing the most significant rule change in decades,” executive director Tony Clark said Saturday in a statement.

The league implemented the pitch clock ahead of the 2023 season and reduced the time to pitch when runners are on base from 20 to 18 seconds in December. Players averaged 7.3 seconds left on the 20-second clock when they began pitching last season, according to MLB.