TRENTON — On the first day that minor league baseball’s new rules to speed up the game went into full effect this season, a home-plate umpire ejected the manager of the Class AA Trenton Thunder for arguing.

And what was he arguing about? The new rules, of course, and more specifically, the one that requires the leadoff batter in each half of an inning to be in the batter’s box with at least five seconds remaining in the time allotted for the break. The umpire, Eric Gillam, ruled that a Trenton batter, Mason Williams, had not abided by the five-second rule and called a strike. The Trenton manager, Al Pedrique, thought that Gillam should have warned Williams before putting him in an 0-1 hole. Gillam did not want to hear his complaints. Pedrique got tossed.

So did the push by baseball to speed up its game begin — with at least one ejection. But that was back in May, when new pace-of-game measures were being put into effect in both the major and minor leagues, and bumps in the road were inevitable.

Now, more than three months later, the measures have become the norm and are having at least a modest impact. In the major leagues, the effort focuses on a between-innings clock similar to the one being used in the minors and a mandate that hitters keep one foot in the batter’s box, except under certain circumstances, such as a wild pitch, a play on the bases, even a swing.