I was out last night. Went to see Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips. Good movie. I’d give it 3 stars.
When I got out of the movie, I sneaked a peak at my phone and saw Detroit carried a no-hitter into the ninth and beat Boston 1-0.
After watching St. Louis beat Los Angeles 1-0 in 2:40 earlier in the day, I figured baseball had another quick game at night. So I nearly fell off my chair when I checked the box score for Tigers-Red Sox. Under T for time: 3:56.
Are you kidding me? Nearly four hours for a near no-hitter in a game where only one run scored.
I saw that Anibal Sanchez had 12 strikeouts and 6 walks, throwing 116 pitches in six innings. Boston starter Jon Lester also threw 109 pitches in 6 1/3 innings.
But should that make their 1-0 game last 1 hour, 16 minutes longer than the Cardinals’ 1-0 game? No way.
I’m sure it was a great game last night. But 3:56 for a 1-0 game is ridiculous.
Mr. Sherman, I can tell you part of it. I wasn’t watching but put it on in the 9th and thereby probably jinxed the no-hitter. Benoit, the Detroit pitcher, was taking up to 30 seconds between pitches. Now, it was bad enough that that meant that Fox cut to 20 fans between each pitch to show that Red Sox fans were on the edge of their seats (horrible directing–Harry Coyle is spinning in the sod). But I was chuckling to myself because the plate umpire was Cowboy Joe West. A lot of people don’t like him, but I think most in baseball consider him a good umpire when he isn’t stirring things up. He’s the one who complained about the length of Yankees-Red Sox games. And since he is known to cause a rhubarb here and there, I realized that he is the one umpire who would have invoked the rule on taking too long between pitches, but MLB wouldn’t stand for it. So, go see if that incompetent, Bud Selig, is unhappy. Of course he isn’t. He’s still saying he had a good policy on steroids.
A major reason games take longer — and something Kaat did not even touch on — is because there are more pitches in games than ever before. Teams take and take and take and foul off and foul off and foul off in an effort to get starters out the game. The Red Sox do it better than anyone (the Yankees traditionally have been great at it, too). They faced more pitches than any other team, by design. That’s why their games, and Sox-Yankees games, take so long. Even with little scoring. I’d love to read a follow-up post on your site about this. Thank you.
Frank:
Thanks for checking in. It isn’t just the Red Sox. Other teams play long games too. Please check my previous posts.
Television adds about 3-4 minutes of commercials every half inning. That adds about 30 minutes to the game.
The hitters take pitches, that’s ok, but they don’t have to step out of the box after every pitch and aimlessly walk around. Then, the pitcher takes a lot of time between throwing pitches. Often, the pitcher takes too much time getting a sign from the catcher so the hitter calls time and steps out of the box.
I don’t mind the slower pace of the game, afterall,”I don’t care if I never get back.” However, as you say Ed, 4 hours for a 1-0 game is ridiculous. Go to youTube and watch the clip of Maris hitting homer #61. The whole sequence, three pitches and the home run trot, takes a minute. Today, that would take 15 minutes including taking the pitches, hitting the ball, and then the whole celebration and speeches and all that b.s.