Tampa Bay defeated Boston 1-0 in 2 hours and 6 minutes in a home game on the 11th, becoming the first team in the American Professional Baseball (MLB) to record 10 consecutive victories in 36 years. In previous years, it ended quickly enough to be considered the record for the shortest game time, but this year, there have already been three cases where it ended earlier than this.
Until this day, the 12th day after the opening of this season, 메이저사이트the average MLB game time was 2 hours and 37 minutes, down 32 minutes (16.9%) from the same period last year (3 hours and 9 minutes). It is the fastest record in 39 years since 1984, when the game finished in an average of 2 hours and 35 minutes. It took only 2 hours and 29 minutes for Philadelphia to defeat Miami 15-3 in the home game that day.
The biggest reason for the reduction in game time is the introduction of the ‘pitch clock’. The pitch clock installed behind home plate counts down 15 seconds from the moment the pitcher receives the ball from the catcher when there are no runners and 20 seconds when there are runners. When this time is exceeded, the referee automatically declares a ball. The batter must also get to bat before the pitch clock goes below 8 seconds. Violation of this is an automatic strike. A total of 134 violations of the pitch clock rule (an average of 0.86 per game) occurred during the 155 games played this season until this day.
At first, the team did not welcome this system. Houston pitcher Ryan Presley (35) expressed his dissatisfaction, saying, “Why are you asking me to throw the ball quickly when it is not necessary?” However, in recent years, positive responses have been increasing. Colorado infielder CJ Cron (33) said, “The progress of the game is speeding up without any particular hindrance to the performance. This is my first experience. Especially when he is defending, time flies well,” he laughed.
The provision of ‘infield defensive shift prohibition’ introduced for the purpose of improving batting average is also showing an effect. The league average batting average rose from 0.233 to 0.249 during the same period last year. The Associated Press said, “This year, the weather was cold and wet at the beginning of the season,” and expected the blow to rise as the temperature rises. Last year’s overall MLB batting average was 0.243, the lowest since 1968.
As the size of the base increased from 15 inches (approximately 38.1 cm) to 18 inches (approximately 45.7 cm), the number of stolen bases also increased by 44.4% from 0.9 per game during the same period last year to 1.3 this year. The stealing success rate (81.3%) also increased by 8 percentage points from the same period last year (73.3%). As the base increases, the distance between runners has to run is reduced by about 11.4cm, so each team is more actively running base play.
MBC Sports Plus commentator Song Jae-woo said, “In MLB, the average batting average in the league has fallen recently due to the phenomenon of pitchers dominating batters. As a result, as the dependence of hitters on home runs increased, the importance of stealing bases was relatively reduced.” Then, the ‘fun to watch’ will increase,” he said.