By Jayson Stark, Patrick Mooney, Nick Groke, C. Trent Rosecrans and Andy McCullough
MLB’s 15 games on Opening Day averaged 2 hours and 45 minutes Thursday, 26 minutes shorter than last year’s average, indicating a successful regular-season start for the pitch clock introduced to shorten games as part of the league’s new rule changes. Here’s what you need to know:
- Last year’s Opening Day, with seven games played, averaged 3 hours and 11 minutes.
- Not one of the first seven games completed Thursday went as long as last year’s Opening Day average time of games.
- Only two of the first seven games completed this year were longer than the shortest game on Opening Day last year. The shortest of last year’s Opening Day games was 2 hours and 49 minutes.
- Cubs pitcher Marcus Stroman committed the first regular-season pitch-clock violation, while Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers was the first hitter called out for a pitch-clock violation Thursday.
More notable numbers
On Thursday, one of the two games of the first seven that lasted 2:49 or longer was a 10-9 win by the Orioles over the Red Sox, which was 3 hours and 10 minutes.
The Reds vs. Pirates game went 3 hours and 2 minutes. The matchup had 15 walks and 26 strikeouts and neither team’s starter lasted more than five innings.
The Athletic’s instant analysis:
How did the pitch clock perform?
By the end of spring training, it seemed like everyone had not only gotten used to the pitch clock, but had also pretty much forgotten about it — except when celebrating a one-hour, 52-minute game as Reds starter Graham Ashcraft did late in spring.
Thursday, though, both the Pirates and Reds starters had a pitch clock violation and both of those plate appearances ended in home runs for the batter. Is that related? Probably not, but there is more shaking off signs in the regular season than in spring where the results don’t matter.
Ultimately, though, even if the game felt like a slog, especially with 15 walks and 26 strikeouts, the announced game time was still just 3:02, which a year ago would’ve been considered a quick game. — Rosecrans
I am here to report that the clock works on the West Coast, too. Take the game between the Padres and the Rockies. San Diego starter Blake Snell operated at his customary inefficient clip. He needed 24 pitches to complete the first inning. He had thrown 70 pitches through three. The reliever behind him was not much better, in a 7-2 loss to Colorado. The box score would suggest a contest that lagged at a torpid pace. And the game still finished in 2:56, 10 minutes shorter than the average game in 2022.
The other late games were just as breezy. The Mariners finished a tidy, 3-0 victory over the Guardians in 2:14. The Athletics downed the Angels, 2-1, in 2:30. The Dodgers squashed the Diamondbacks, 8-2, in only 2:35 — and that was a game which featured five different Arizona pitchers and multiple mid-inning pitching changes.
It is hard to argue with the early results. Time will tell — pardon the phrase — on the long-range consequences of the clock. But you can’t question the reduction in dead air. — McCullough
What do Opening Day times tell us about the impact of the clock?
Spring training games whooshed along at a pace we haven’t seen in more than 40 years. Games averaged two hours and 35 minutes in the spring — 26 minutes shorter than last spring and 31 minutes shorter than the average regular-season game last year.
No one in the sport thought that pace was sustainable this year once the season started, for all sorts of logical reasons. But 2:40? Maybe 2:45? There was real optimism that an average somewhere in that range was doable. And Thursday’s games seemed to prove it.
The first nine games of the day averaged exactly 2:45. Five were shorter than that. Just four were longer.
Even a 10-9 game in Boston — which featured 44 baserunners, 10 pitching changes, two pinch-hitters and two pinch-runners — lasted only 3:10. A year ago on Opening Day, a 3-1 Astros-Angels game — featuring just 18 baserunners — dragged on for 3:15. And not one game all day was completed in 2:45.
So what did the game times Thursday tell us? Pitch clocks may bring their share of violations and unintended consequences. But do they work? Do they vacuum all the dead time out of these games? Do they bring game times down to a manageable length? That’s not even in doubt. — Stark
What they’re saying
Stroman committed the violation in the third inning of Thursday’s 4-0 win over the Brewers with Christian Yelich at-bat and no outs. The violation was called after Stroman turned to look at Brice Turang leading off second base. He worked around an eventual walk to Yelich after the automatic ball made it a 2-2 count.
Stroman spent part of spring training pitching in a World Baseball Classic that didn’t feature a pitch clock and acknowledged there were times he felt “super rushed” on the mound.
“I don’t think people really realize that it just adds a whole nother layer of thinking,” Stroman said. “You got to be conscious of the clock. You’re trying to worry about the pitch. You’re trying to worry about the guys on base. You’re trying to worry about your grip. There are so many things going on now.”
He gave up three walks and three hits while getting eight strikeouts. Stroman noted he’s a pitcher “who’s able to step off the mound and breathe when I need to.”
“I don’t have the opportunity to do that anymore,” Stroman said. “Breathing is very important to aligning the body and putting yourself in a perfect position to deliver the ball to the plate. Like I said, I think it’s messing up a lot of guys’ pre-pitch routines, which can ultimately affect how they pitch.”
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, speaking on-air during the Rangers TV broadcast Thursday, said the league will not “have our feet in stone” in regard to the pitch clock. Manfred said he hopes umpires will exercise some discretion late in games to allow for slower, tense moments. During spring training, managers and players around the league expressed concern that a game might end on a pitch clock violation or amid a situation where a tight game becomes too rushed for the moment.
While Manfred spoke, the game in Texas was stopped for several minutes after Jacob deGrom’s PitchCom device malfunctioned.
In the Red Sox game against the Orioles, Devers stepped out of the batter’s box in the eighth inning and wasn’t set within eight seconds after stepping back in, resulting in his violation. He struck out after the violation as he already had two strikes. Baltimore went on to win 10-9.
Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson was asked about the rules before Wednesday’s workout.
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of ideas,” Swanson said. “I just don’t need any of them to get me in trouble. I definitely think that there’s some adjustments that can be made. But like I’ve said very early on, we got three options. One of them is to just complain about it all year, which ain’t going to do anybody any good. The second is to just embrace it and find ways to use it for our advantage. The third would be nobody plays, and I don’t think that’s going to happen, either. So we’re left with one option, and that’s just to embrace it and use it to our advantage and do the best that we can to play this new brand of baseball.”
Backstory
MLB introduced the pitch clock in the spring, with the aim of streamlining the entertainment for fans. Pitchers get 20 seconds to begin their throwing motions with runners on base and 15 seconds to do so with the bases empty. Umpires assess a ball to pitchers who don’t start their motions before the clock expires and a strike to batters who aren’t in the box and “alert to the pitcher” within eight seconds.
The commissioner’s office said in September that the implementation of a pitch clock in the minor leagues last year cut down the average time of games by 25 minutes.
Required reading
(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
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