What’s the average number of innings played per game (per season?) in which a team does not score?
This number varies a bit from year to year, SanDiego, because the number of runs scored varies from year to year.
MOST innings are scoreless as you might have guessed. The historical average is roughly 2/3rds - that is, about 67% of all half-innings are scoreless.
I don’t know, but I’d bet the farm that the number is way down from what it used to be. A big reason games have gotten so long is that there are so many innings with men on base.
I Googled these facts: “The game from 1984 lasted two hours and 31 minutes. The game from 2014 lasted three hours and six minutes. Pitchers don’t get rid of the ball like they used to. Hitters aren’t expecting them to get rid of the ball like they used to. It adds a couple minutes to every half-inning, which adds close to a half-hour.”
When men get on base, pitchers slow down. All you have to do to prove this is simple observation.
What makes you think there’s a lot more guys on base now? That’s not true at all.
In fact, these days there are FEWER men on base than normal. Not by much but it’s definitely a few points low. In 1984, with its 2:31 games, the MLB OBP was about .323. Today it’s .322, and a significantly higher number of “baserunners” are home runs, so don’t actually result in pitchers having to pitch with a baserunner on. Last year it was just .318, the lowest in 30 years.
What I believe this is referring to is that both batters and pitchers are spending more time fiddling around. Most batters now step out of the box after every pitch to adjust their gloves, their helmets, their bats, etc. Pitchers walk around on the mound, and otherwise work more slowly than they used to.
That, along with (possibly) more pitchouts when a batter does reach base, more meetings on the mound, and longer commercial breaks, are all contributing to the longer games. But, as RickJay notes, the frequency of batters actually winding up on base is actually going down, not up.
The fiddling around problem is a huge, huge problem.
You can plainly see this by watching a few innings from a game in 2019 and then watching a few innings of a game from back in the day on Youtube. Literally every pitch is delivered two to five seconds faster than is the case today unless there’s a guy on base to try to pick off, and that adds up.
As Bill James pointed out, Mike “The Human Rain Delay” Hargrove was called that because he fiddled between pitches so much… but if he played today you’d never notice it because he would not be the slightest bit unusual.