The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

I’m gonna call this a success.

 

It's difficult to cut game times in sports without cutting action. In football it's almost impossible, short of (gasp!) cutting commercial breaks.

Baseball succeeded. And it would be even faster without so many strikeouts (32 in Yankees-Giants vs. ZERO in the Mazeroski game).

 

Instantly in spring it was clear that this should’ve been done 20 years ago.

 

The evidence off one day's games is obviously insufficient, but the high number of strikeouts in some games and the high number of walks in others, as well as some known quality starters having dominant performances while others (deGrom, Nola) getting tattooed indicate to me that the faster pace of pitching puts even greater emphasis on control. If a guy throws strikes, his natural advantage is magnified. If he can't put it where he wants it, his natural disadvantage is magnified, too. Or as once was a mantra, work fast, change speeds, throw strikes.

 

Yeah, I really missed guys stepping out of the box to adjust their wrist bands

 

I saw someone on social media saying she wasn't going to pay good money for "just" 2 1/2 hours of entertainment.

Had she been within arm's length ...

 

Between no sticky substances and no two-minute breaks between pitches, Cleveland reliever James Karinchak is screwed.

 

For those who miss the marathon games of last season I sat through every pitch of the Jays-Cardinals slog so you didn't have to.

 

What is wrong with you and your friend?

 

Perhaps "fewer thousands of dollars in concessions and gift shop sales" will be offset by "more thousands of dollars by people who will actually choose to attend one of these games now."

When one half-inning now equals what once was one pitch, the hallelujahs can't come loud enough.

 

Nomar Garciaparra's useless, incessant OCD adjustment of his batting gloves between every pitch is burned into my retinas. The fact that it has been outlawed makes my heart swell.

Someone youtubed the running of an entire Kentucky Derby race in the time it took between pitches of a Zack Greinke start. That shit is gone forever.

@BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo : You and your friend need to examine every aspect of your lives to determine what went wrong to come up with a hot take that we need to spend more time seeing batters step out of the box and more time seeing pitchers shake their heads and step off the rubber.

 

Not going to find a better example than that.