Long nights
Strikeouts, pitching changes add up to increased game times during post-season
Games have averaged three hours, 35 1/2 minutes, up six minutes from the 2017 post-season and more than a half-hour from the regular season.
Strikeouts have topped hits in seven of eight post-season matchups. Starting pitchers usually don’t finish the fifth inning and use of relievers is up markedly in an era when “bullpenning” has become a verb.
Have the changes brought about by analytics made baseball less appealing to casual fans?
“There’s certainly something to be said for that, because ball in play, double plays, defence, that’s always exciting,” Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said ahead of Tuesday night’s World Series opener against Boston. “I know our series there was a lot of strikeouts, but there was the strategy part of it – I think that that’s very exciting for a baseball purist that loves to see what managers think and how you can kind of match up against the opposition.”
Post-season games this year have averaged a record 18.8 strikeouts, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, up from 18.4 last year and 18 in 2016.
There were 526 whiffs and 416 hits in the first 28 post-season games, including 161 strikeouts and 110 hits in the Dodgers’ win over Milwaukee in the NL Championship Series.
Boston’s Division Series victory over the New York was the only one with more hits than strikeouts: 67 to 60.
While viewers hope for action, managers and many players are caught up in the tactical chess match between dugouts prepped by front office analytical teams.
“It’s more interesting. It is,” Boston manager Alex Cora said. “There’s so much information now that you can actually exploit weaknesses on the team, not only rely on the starters or your usual setup guy or your closer. Somebody the last few years figured out that there’s a lot of off days in the playoffs, that you can actually use your starters as relievers or you can go with your relievers for multiple innings, and it’s fun. It’s fun as a baseball fan.”