NEW YORK — Starting extra innings with a runner on second base during the regular season was made a permanent rules change by Major League Baseball on Monday after three seasons of use during the coronavirus pandemic.

Known by some as the “Ghost Runner” and by others as the “Manfred Man” after baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, the rule was unanimously adopted by the sport’s 11-person competition committee.

Use of position players as pitchers also was tightened by the committee. They will be limited to extra innings, when a player’s team is losing by eight or more runs or is winning by 10 or more runs in the ninth inning. Last year, a position player could pitch only in extra innings or if his team was losing or winning by six or more runs.

The joint competition committee, established in the lockout settlement last March, includes six management officials, four union representatives and one umpire.

There were 216 extra-inning games last year, down from 233 in 2021 and 78 during the shortened 2020 season. The longest last year was Cleveland’s 7-6, 15-inning win over Minnesota in the second game of a doubleheader on Sept. 17. That was one inning shy of the longest in the three seasons of the rule, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 16-inning win at San Diego on Aug. 25, 2021.

Home teams went 113-103 in extra-inning games last year and are 262-263 in extra innings since the runner on second rule started in 2020, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Home teams were 312-294 in extra-inning games from 2017-19, Elias said.

Use of position players as pitchers rose from 90 on 2019 to 89 in 2021 and 132 last year, according to the commissioner’s office. Use when trailing by six or seven runs increased from eight in 2019 to 16 in 2021 to 28 last year.

Use when leading by six or more runs rose from 1 in 2019 and none in 2021 to 18 last season.

YANKEES: Left-hander Nestor Cortes will miss next month’s World Baseball Classic due to a strained right hamstring but hasn’t ruled out being ready for the start of the regular season.

“Came in on Wednesday and told the staff I was a little banged up,” Cortes said at the Yankees’ minor league complex. “After long talks, obviously, the best interest was to stay out of it. The biggest goal right here is to get healthy and be ready for the start of the season. I think it’s something that’s definitely doable to start the season off healthy and in the rotation.”

Cortes said the injury is low grade two strain and there is no time frame. He will not pitch for at least a couple weeks.

Cortes first felt a tweak a week ago while running sprints at home.

“Didn’t think of it much,” Cortes said. “I thought it was just a cramp. Later that night went to put on a shoe and kind of felt a little pull there. Once I showed up here it was a little bruised. We’re taking it day by day. We’re seeing how I progress.”

Cortes, who went 12-4 with a 2.44 ERA in 28 starts during an All-Star season last year, had been set to pitch for the United States in the WBC.

Another Yankees’ starter, Frankie Montas, could miss the start of the season with right shoulder inflammation.

Obtained from the Oakland Athletics in a trade deadline deal last season, the right-hander was slowed by the same issue. He went 1-3 with a 6.35 ERA over eight starts with New York.

PADRES: Yu Darvish will receive $30 million this year in salary and signing bonus as part of a new $108 million, six-year contract with the San Diego Padres.

The agreement, announced last Thursday, replaced the final season of a $126 million, six-year contract that was due to pay the 36-year-old right-hander $18 million this season.

NATIONALS: Ted Lerner, the billionaire real estate developer whose family bought the Washington Nationals in 2006, has died, the team announced. He was 97.

A Nationals spokesperson said Lerner died Sunday of complications from pneumonia at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Lerner’s group purchased the Nationals from Major League Baseball in 2006 for $450 million after the team was moved to the U.S. capital from Montreal. He was managing principal owner until ceding that role to son Mark in 2018.

Under the Lerners’ ownership, the Nationals went from one of baseball’s worst teams in their first several seasons in Washington to World Series champions in 2019. The Lerners also are credited with revitalizing the city’s Navy Yard area since Nationals Park opened in 2008.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Founding Managing Principal Owner Theodore N. Lerner,” the team said in a statement. “The crowning achievement of his family business was bringing baseball back to the city he loved — and with it, bringing a championship home for the first time since 1924. He cherished the franchise and what it brought to his beloved hometown.”

Lerner was born in 1925, the year after the Washington Senators beat the New York Giants in the World Series. That franchise left the city in 1960 to become the Minnesota Twins, and its expansion replacement lasted a decade before moving to Texas as the Rangers.

Washington did not have a baseball team until MLB assumed control of the Expos and moved them there from Montreal in 2005. The group led by the Lerners was chosen as the winning bidder.

Last year, the Lerners began exploring the possibility of selling the team, which is worth $2 billion, according to Forbes, which estimates the family’s net worth is $6.6 billion thanks to the Nationals and Lerner Enterprises, one of the largest property-owning companies in the Washington area.