Just say in the official list it was a 7-inning game. It’s a no hitter. Some no hitters are easier than others.
Yep, this is how they should do it. Did he start the game? Did he finish the game? Did he allow a hit? If the answers to those questions are “yes” and “yes” and “no,” respectively, then it’s a no-hitter.
I don’t care a whole bunch, but it seems fair that the pitcher should have to face at least 27 batters in order to be awarded with a traditional no-hitter. Bumgarner’s feat isn’t equal to Nolan Ryan recording 27 outs, and it would be a trivial accomplishment to accord a no-hitter to a pitcher in a 5 inning rain game.
I have a bigger problem with baseball, though. 2020 broke my fandom a little bit. The Yankees have been awful so far, but I just don’t care that much. And I’m not watching many games, either. Anyone else experiencing this? I hope it comes back because it’s been a life long habit (and one that I enjoyed.)
2020 broke me also. I find the pace of the games too sluggish to put up with for long. It is really sad as I loved baseball for all my life. I really started following the game since I was a little kid.
Baseball has to address the speed of the game in a very major way.
Whatever happened to the idea of implementing a pitch clock?
The reason it’s sluggish is because it’s more and more analytics driven. I mean I get it – analytics is a part of sports, and teams that utilize the right metrics are more successful than the ones that rely on good ole instincts. But it sucks for baseball because it requires so many switches of personnel, which eats up time.
What I’d like to see is for some archivists and data analysts do a deep dive into the vault and see how many substitutions there were in an average game in the 70s through the 90s and come up with a cap on the number of switches that can take place per game, barring injury.
The only thing that broke me was the socially distant crowds. I miss seeing full stands at Wrigley, Fenway, and such. As it is now, I always feel like I’m watching the game in Tampa.
I still think the 3 big things that would speed up the pace of the game are:
- Pitch clock, get the ball throw the damn ball. 15 or 20 seconds, I’m not sure what is right.
- Batters have to stay in the batters box. no timeouts unless obvious distress. Sure as hell no adjusting the batting gloves crap.
- Reduce the commercial time back down. The extra commercial they snuck in per break is helping to kill the game and at 20+ breaks per game, that’s at least 10 minutes back right there.
Lesser items:
I don’t love the reply and I don’t think they’ve been worth the time lost to them.
Catcher/Pitcher conferences, somewhat reduced already, knock them down even more.
Throws over to first, limit them somehow. Maybe the 4th one is a ball.
I basically took 2020 off – it didnt mean anything, I didn’t pay attention. So I’m back watching the Giants, trying to figure out “who are these guys?”
I feel like the Japanese groundskeepers in Major League: ya know, they’re not that shitty.
The 3 best team ERA’s in MLB are all in the NL West, with the Giants at #1.
This would basically give the baserunner a free head start. After 3 throwovers he knows he can safely take off at the first twitch of the pitcher.
This would solve 90% of their problems and get the game back under 3 hours. Then the next step will be to try and break the 3 true outcomes cycle. Once there is more stuff going on the game will feel faster. The length of the commercial breaks if very noticeable on mlb.tv where it’s either relative “highlights”, the same three commercials, or silence. Especially, watching West coast baseball the silence is enough for me to fall asleep and then wake back up when the game comes back.
I always watch baseball on delay where I can zip through the commercials. It’s totally unwatchable if you actually have to sit through them in real time.
OTOH, I feel that way about 100% of TV, sports or otherwise.
No, I’m sorry, but that isn’t it. It simply cannot explain why games are as long as they are.
Pitching changes? There aren’t THAT many more than there used to be. A pitching change doesn’t take ten minutes, and pitching changes usually only eat up more time if they’re done mid-inning. And there aren’t any more switches of personnel anywhere else - in fact, there are fewer, not that it takes any more time for a pinch hitter to walk up to the plate.
More pitches being taken? In thirty years that number has gone up by one pitch every three batters.
More runs being scored? More baserunners definitely lengthens a game but games are getting longer even when run scoring isn’t up (and why wouldn’t analytics help pitching and defense too?) In 1996, which saw runs per game go over 10 for the first time in 50 years, the average game was 2:51. Now it’s 3 hours or more every year, even in 2014 when runs per game were down to 8.13, which is actually a fairly low number. Batters per game peaked in 1999-2001 but games are longer now.
Right here:
First of all, ignore pinch hitters and pinch runners; that doesn’t change much and makes very little difference. The only substitution that is really different now is pitchers; there are about 1.5 pitching changes per team more than there used to be in the 70s and 80s.
Nats vs Blue Jays in what would have been Expos vs Blue Jays in the past. And, of course, it’s being played in the Canadian province of Florida!
I think analytics are definitely lengthening the game - the pitching changes, taking more pitches, trying to get the righty/lefty matchups just right. I’m not saying that they’re the only thing - the extra commercials don’t help. Pitchers and catchers seem to take longer to get down to business.
apparently, if you’re one of the 40 (yes and my city is one of them so there’s a lot of animosity towards MLB in the antelope valley at the moment)or so places that lost their minor league team and there are enough teams around you that are willing to join you
you can from a league whose point seems to be being a test lab so MLB can test rule changes
Maybe not quite yet. Tonight’s line:
|PITCHERS| IP |H |R |ER |BB |K |HR |PC-ST
|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
|G. Richards|7.0 |7 |1 |1 |0 |10 |1 |93-70
True, it was against the Mets offense…
Speaking of the Jays, I’m thinking this guy Vladimir Guerrero JR might be something, 3 HRs tonight and 7 RBIs
Guerrero is the only player amongst their young players I have total confidence in.
Many Jays fans were bitching in 2019 and 2020 he wasn’t Babe Ruth yet. Fools all, it was and is obvious he’s an A+ hitting prospect.
Something about the ideas to speed up the game … rules already exist limiting the time between pitches (at least with nobody on base) as well as requiring batters to stay in the box. It’s just that umpires (and by extension MLB itself) don’t enforce those rules.
You don’t even need to change the MLB rule book! Just enforce it! If a pitcher dilly-dallies, umpires can call a ball. If a batter takes his time getting in the box, umpires can tell the pitcher to pitch and it’s automatically a strike. Them’s the rules!
Although I agree that reducing the advertising time between innings would make the biggest difference in speeding things up.
I’m always struck seeing classic games from the 70s, or heck even the 90s, and seeing the pace of games practically flying along in comparison to today. Pitchers back then didn’t mess around, they took the ball and they threw it.