Amid injuries to pitchers around the league, the Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark issued a statement regarding the union's concern over the effects of the league's rule changes on pitchers.

The statement noted the pitch clock rule change, implemented in 2023.

"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," Clark said in the statement Saturday.

"Since then, our concerns about the health impacts of reduced recovery time have only intensified.

"The league's unwillingness thus far to acknowledge or study the effects of these profound changes is an unprecedented threat to our game and its most valuable asset — the players."

Following Clark's calls for concern, MLB responded with a statement of its own:

"This statement ignores the empirical evidence and much more significant long-term trend, over multiple decades, of velocity and spin increases that are highly correlated with arm injuries. Nobody wants to see pitchers get hurt in this game, which is why MLB is currently undergoing a significant comprehensive research study into the causes of this long-term increase, interviewing prominent medical experts across baseball which to date has been consistent with an independent analysis by Johns Hopkins University that found no evidence to support that the introduction of the pitch clock has increased injuries. In fact, JHU found no evidence that pitchers who worked quickly in 2023 were more likely to sustain an injury than those who worked less quickly on average. JHU also found no evidence that pitchers who sped up their pace were more likely to sustain an injury than those who did not."

The pitch clock originally gave pitchers 15 seconds to throw with no base runners and 20 seconds when someone was on base, though in December, an updated change gave pitchers 18 seconds with runners on base. The league's competition committee approved that change after games were 2 hours and 40 minutes on average during the 2023 season.

The MLBPA's statement comes after Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Spencer Strider and Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Shane Bieber suffered elbow injuries in the first week of the season.

After reporting right elbow soreness on Friday, Strider underwent an MRI that revealed damage to his ulnar collateral ligament, the Braves announced. The star will be evaluated by Dr. Keith Meister in Arlington, Texas, to determine treatment options. The Athletic's Steve Berman and Evan Drellich noted that a damaged UCL often requires Tommy John surgery.

Bieber, who began the season pitching 12 innings with a 0.00 ERA and 20 strikeouts, is set to undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.