‘The game just flows now’ – The Denver Post

Watching the Orioles this season is giving Dennis Morton flashbacks to the 1960s.

No, not because Baltimore is one of the best teams in the American League like they were for the latter half of that decade, although Morton is excited about the post-rebuild Orioles.

Instead, Morton, 70, is recalling his days sitting in the 25-cent wooden bleachers at Memorial Stadium because of the brand of baseball the Orioles — and the other 29 teams in Major League Baseball — are playing at Camden Yards this year. The 2023 season is MLB’s first with a pitch clock meant to speed up games, and that it has.

“The games didn’t used to be four-hour marathons. It was different back then,” said Morton, a Forest Hill resident, before Baltimore’s game against the Kansas City Royals on Sunday. “I think the change has all been for the good — for the fans and for the entertainment value. It speeds up the action. There’s no lingering outside the batter’s box. The pitcher gets ready, the batter gets ready, let’s go. I like it a lot.”

With the pitch clock, the average time of an MLB game is down 27 minutes — from 3:06 last season to 2:39 this year. The last time games were played this quickly was in 1984.

The change, Orioles fans say, was needed. Game times slowly started creeping up in the late 1980s and 1990s before crossing the three-hour threshold in 2000. In the past decade, games well over three hours became the norm, with the average contest taking 3:11 in 2021.

“Within the last few years, the game was moving too slowly,” said Alan Carter, 64 of Severn. “It was like watching golf, I would lose interest in it. But now with the pitch clock, it’s much more exciting.”

Under the new rules, pitchers have 15 seconds to deliver the ball with nobody on base and 20 seconds with runners on. With runners on, pitchers can disengage the rubber (or throw to a base) just twice per plate appearance. Hitters, meanwhile, have to be in the batter’s box and ready to hit with at least eight seconds, although they get one timeout per plate appearance. A violation leads to an automatic ball for pitchers and automatic strikes for batters.

The new rules have gotten rid of some of the most basic, yet time-consuming moments in a game, such as hitters repeatedly adjusting their batting gloves or pitchers throwing to first base several times in a row. Those instances are ones that Trey Noble, 26, of Hanover, Pennsylvania, won’t miss, and getting rid of them is partly why he thinks attendance is up across MLB, including a significant increase for the Orioles (42-25) at Camden Yards.

“I just remember this one pitcher just looking at first and picking off five, six, seven times,” said Noble, recalling a game during the pre-pitch clock era. “The whole stadium was just booing him. We were like, ‘Yo, throw the ball, man.’ Just throw the pitch, man. We don’t have all day.”

It’s hard to find fans who aren’t in favor of the pitch clock, but Steve Rudden, 39, of Olney, said he was skeptical at first. A diehard fan, Rudden didn’t think the game needed wholesale changes, and he wasn’t encouraged by what he saw when it was first implemented in the majors during 2023 spring training.

“I was skeptical about the pitch clock,” Rudden said Wednesday before the Orioles’ 3-1 loss against the Toronto Blue Jays, which lasted 2:35. “I felt it was a little bit rushed. But now that they’re in season, the games have been going faster. This is a lot better.”

While the pitch clock has sped up the pace, it’s been less dramatic for the Orioles, whose average game is the second slowest in the major leagues at 2:45 versus 3:08 last season. However, every MLB team’s average game time is between 2:35 and 2:46.

One possible reason for the slightly longer duration is the success of the Orioles’ offense, which entered Wednesday ranked sixth in runs per game at 5.06. All five American League East teams are scoring above league average, and 20 of Baltimore’s 67 games have been against division foes. The Orioles also rank above league average in walks, total bases and pitches per plate appearance, while 56 of their 67 games have been decided by four or fewer runs.

While a 27-minute difference might not seem like much, it’s felt more by the fact that the extra-long games have been eliminated. The longest game the Orioles have played this season was 3:32, an extra-inning contest against the Blue Jays on May 20. Last season, 25 of Baltimore’s games took longer than 3:32.

The longest nine-inning game this season was 3:24 on May 4 against the Kansas City Royals. Baltimore’s longest games in 2022 were 4:31 for extra innings and 4:06 for nine innings. Seven times last year the Orioles played a game that took more than four hours. This year, they’ve played more games in 2:30 or less (18) than over three hours (16), including a game that finished in under two hours May 3 versus the Royals.

“If we came to a 7:05 [p.m.] game, the game wouldn’t end until well after 11 o’clock and then you’d have to drive home,” Carter said. “That’s way too late.”

However, there was one positive to the longer games, Morton said.

“You could get some reading done,” Morton said with a laugh. “If you were sitting at home and you wanted to glance away for a little while, you had the opportunity to do that. But it wasn’t good for the game for the games to go so long.”

Morton and Carter, two grandfathers who were at Camden Yards with their grandkids, said the change is especially good for the younger demographic.

“I have two grandchildren here today, and they’re not gonna collapse in the sixth inning like they used to,” Morton said.

One of the most common arguments against the pitch clock before its inception was that it would feel unnatural. Baseball was supposed to be the sport without a clock.

But as players, umpires and fans have adjusted, Carter said, the clock has fallen into the periphery.

“It just feels normal,” he said. “The game just flows now.”

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