Extra Innings — Baseball Bench Coach

When you sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch, how much more ballgame do you really want? Saturday’s 18-inning game between the Brewers and Mets and last Sunday’s 15-inning affair between the Cubs and Diamondbacks, both games lasting close to six hours, sparked a controversy between old school traditionalists and new school realists. Should we look for ways to resolve a deadlocked game before many fans have moved on to do other things?

From an historical perspective we need to go back 100 years to the longest game ever played measured by innings. It was a 26-inning game in May 1920 between the Boston Braves and Brooklyn Dodgers, ending in a 1-1 tie due to darkness. Playing time was only 3 hours, 50 minutes, and just two pitchers appeared in the game. During that era a game could indeed end in a tie.

The longest game by time was more recent, an 8 hour, 6 minutes contest played in May 1984 at Comiskey Park in Chicago between the White Sox and the then American League Milwaukee Brewers. It was a night game suspended due to curfew at 1:00 a.m. after 17 innings tied at 3-3. Play resumed the next day and ended finally in the 25th inning with the White Sox winning 7-6.

Today, with attendance down (2018 saw lower numbers at the turnstiles and the trend is continuing in 2019) and attention spans diminishing, baseball is looking for ways to create more interest from casual fans. Should one of those ways be to address extra inning games? Interestingly, an NBC Sports Chicago Twitter poll taken after the Cubs vs. Diamondbacks game indicated that 73% of fans like it just the way it is, play as many innings as necessary to decide a result.

Let’s take a look though at two options that received commentary over the past week. One is to shorten the games to 12 innings at a maximum and accept a tie, just like we did 100 years ago! The NFL’s version of that is to have a ten-minute overtime period in regular season play and if the game is not decided, a tie results. That actually makes sense in the NFL, since a tie game might be the deciding factor to get into the playoffs as opposed to the messy tie-breaking rules. But in baseball? Just going back to last year, two of the National League divisions ended in a deadlock after 162 games of play. We might have missed out on some incredibly exciting playoff games if tie games during the season were permitted in baseball.

Another option discussed would be to begin each extra inning with a runner on second base, creating more scoring opportunities. This is a popular tournament rule in women’s fast-pitch softball where pitching tends to dominate. Indeed, minor league baseball adopted this rule in 2018, much of the reason being to lessen the burden on pitching staffs. The parallel in professional sports is to the NHL’s five minute overtime period followed by a shootout. Adopting the runner on base rule in MLB would change the way the game is pIayed, and frankly it’s hokey (sorry, had to say it).

MLB though does have planned a rule to go in effect next year that will speed up the game and indirectly impact the extra innings dilemma. Beginning in 2020, barring injury or the end of an inning, a pitcher must pitch to three batters in an inning. The rule change is an obvious attempt to cut down on those tedious late innings of a game when managers (and bench coaches!) opt for the best matchup, RH power pitcher vs. RH batter and even more so, LH power pitcher vs. LH batter, batter after batter.

The number of pitchers used in a game is spiraling upward (in 1998 both teams combined averaged 6.1 per game and in 2018 it was up to 8.7), too much time spent making pitching changes with no action on the field. In one of the classic games ever played at Wrigley Field, the Phillies defeated the Cubs 23-22 in May 1979 in ten innings. The game was played in just over four hours (4:03), and while both starters went only 1/3 of an inning, the Phillies used just five pitchers and the Cubs six! Contrast that to a low-scoring 3-2 Giants win over the Dodgers played this past Monday in nine, long innings (3:14), when both teams each used five pitchers.

The more indirect impact of the 2020 rule change though might be on the makeup of the pitching staff. We might see less of a need for one of the many left-handed relief pitching specialists on a staff (the Angels are the only team in baseball without a left-handed reliever), thus opening up a spot (or two) for a long reliever, a pitcher who can eat up in innings in extra inning games. Last Tuesday, the Reds in a 10-inning loss to the Mets, opted for their closer, Raisel Iglesias, to pitch the 10th, just one day after he had pitched two innings. Maybe staffs with long reliever options might change the extra innings approach beginning next season.

As a baseball traditionalist, I tend to object to rule changes that “mess with the game”, but I do realize that the game needs the casual fan and must find ways to address the speed of play.

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach