BOSTON — Baseball games take too long.
Fans know it, media members know it and now, Major League Baseball is taking steps to remedy it.
MLB commissioner Bud Selig announced Monday the creation of a 10-member committee — which includes Boston Red Sox chairman Tom Werner and Red Sox partner Michael Gordon — tasked with speeding up pace of play and shortening games.
Several potential options have been discussed — a pitch clock seems to be most popular, at least among fans — and Red Sox manager John Farrell offered one of his own when speaking with reporters Tuesday.
“If there’s a way to shorten down the game, it’s the elapsed time in between half-innings.” Farrell said. “I think there’s probably eight minutes you could probably shave off a game inside the time elapsed in between innings.”
As for how a shorter game might affect game management, Farrell doesn’t see much correlation. He did, however, acknowledge that some of the longest games in the bigs come when his team is on the field.
“I don’t know that our strategy from the dugout takes into account the length of a game,” Farrell said. “We’re about making the right decisions and hopefully executing consistent to win the game. I do know this — the Red Sox have notoriously been a team that has played longer games, and in large part because of a lineup that’s been deep, it’s one that sees a lot of pitches, and we would hope that that would not change our view in evaluating players that we value.”
Farrell is spot-on with both of those points. Red Sox hitters are seeing an average of 4.05 pitches per plate appearance this season, the highest rate of any major league club since teams began recording the stat in 1998, according to the team.
Boston’s games also taken an average of three hours, nine minutes and 22 seconds to complete this season, second only to their Tuesday night opponent, the Tampa Bay Rays (3:12:40).
Photo via Joy R. Absalon/USA TODAY Sports Images
