Impact of new MLB rules immediately apparent

Thursday’s season opener was about as long a nine-inning baseball game as you could realistically imagine.

The Red Sox and Orioles combined for 19 runs, 26 hits and 12 walks, using 12 pitchers who collectively threw 344 pitches. Runs were scored by one or both sides in every inning but the second and third, and towards the end Boston mounted a late rally to nearly erase a six-run deficit entering the bottom of the eighth.

All of that added up to a time of game of exactly… 3:10. One minute quicker than the average Red Sox game last season.

How wild is that?

Last year a game like Thursday’s would have easily taken over four hours to play. With all the walks and pitching changes the game would have dragged on forever, and everyone who’d bothered sticking around would have been frozen to their seats by the end.

The same story played out across MLB on Opening Day, with the 15 games taking an average of 2:45 to complete. That’s 26 minutes faster than the average game time last Opening Day, and one of Thursday’s games — the 4-0 Rays win over the Tigers — was done and dusted after just 2:04.

The new rules are having a noticeable impact on the field as well. Thursday saw a marked increase of activity on the base paths, with runners taking advantage of the pitch clock and larger bases to go 21 for 23 on stolen base attempts. Five of those came courtesy of the Orioles alone.

That’s a huge increase in both attempts and successes from last Opening Day when runners only went 5 for 9.

Rafael Devers also became the first player in MLB history to be rung up on an automatic strike three for not being in the batter’s box quickly enough in a regular season game. Overall there were 14 pitch clock violations across MLB on Thursday, including five by batters, eight by pitchers and one by a catcher.

The impact on the ban of defensive shifts was more subtle, but the Red Sox likely got at least one additional hit out of the rule change. Reese McGuire’s single up the middle, which squeaked past a diving Adam Frazier in the bottom of the fifth, would have probably been a routine groundout to the shortstop last season given that McGuire was shifted against 60.2% of the time.

As time goes on we’ll probably see Adam Duvall (71.7%),  Rafael Devers (55.9%) and Kiké Hernández (53.3%) benefit in a similar way, though the Red Sox hope in a bigger spot than Thursday when McGuire’s single proved inconsequential.

The difference may not have been obvious to Red Sox fans in the moment. It was a frigid day and many fans had already been in their seats nearly 45 minutes by first pitch thanks to the Opening Day ceremonies.

But it’s clear the new rules are working as intended, and fans are being treated to a better product as a result.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/TUxWs6Z