The travesty of seven-inning doubleheaders

They alter the integrity of baseball games

I knew I didn’t like the idea of seven-inning doubleheaders in Major League Baseball. But I didn’t know exactly why.

Now I do.

After Madison Bumgarner pitched seven nohit innings for the Diamondbacks in the second game of a doubleheader against the

Braves last Sunday, he didn’t get credited with a no-hitter. Here’s why, explained MLB. com writer Matt Kelly:

“According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Major League Baseball’s official statistician, neither a team nor an individual pitcher will be credited with a no-no in a scheduled seven-inning game of a doubleheader — unless that game goes to extras. If the contest extends to at least nine innings and that pitcher (or a team’s group of pitchers) has still not allowed a hit, then it goes down in the history books as a no-no.”

Only one man reached base against Bumgarner, and that was on an error. Imagine if that ball had been fielded cleanly and Bumgarner had a perfect game going through seven innings. He wouldn’t get credited for a perfect game, and he wouldn’t get the chance to show he might have been perfect for the full nine.

It made sense last year to have seven-inning doubleheaders when the pandemic was in full force. Many teams lost games due to positive COVID tests among their players, so there was a myriad of doubleheaders. Making those games seven innings helped save pitchers’ arms and helped MLB get through its 60-game season.

But why did MLB keep the seven-inning doubleheader this year?

As Kelly explained, “No one can deny that hacking two innings off a baseball game makes it shorter.

For a sport that struggles to attract young audiences, that’s an enticing fact. If there’s one thing Rob Manfred knows, it’s that the youths have fragile attention spans and the only way to draw them in is with Tik Toksized portions.”

But there is one major reason games are longer.

According to some detailed research done by David W. Smith for an article in the Society for American Baseball Research, “The single biggest factor contributing to the longer games is the number of pitches. The rise in strikeouts and related drop in outs on balls in play accounts for much of the difference over time.”

Because more and more players are swinging for the fences and don’t care if they make contact otherwise, each at-bat is taking longer and there are more strikeouts and a greater number of pitches thrown to each batter.

As Smith explains, “One consequence of sabermetric analysis has been that strikeouts no longer have the stigma they once did. Statcast data show launch angles and swing velocities and batters have clearly used this information to adjust their swings so that they hit the ball further. Of course, as these harder swings happen, it is much more likely that the ball will be missed, so we have a pretty clear all-or-nothing phenomenon.”

According to the Associated Press, big league batters are hitting just .232 through April, down from .252 two years ago and under the recordlow of .237 set in the infamous 1968 season that resulted in a lower pitcher’s mound. Strikeouts have averaged 9.06 per team per game, on pace to set a record for the 13th consecutive full season — up from 8.81 two years ago and nearly double the 4.77 in 1979.

So Manfred’s solution to what I feel is a dreadful trend in batting is to shorten the game by truncating two innings off of each game in a doubleheader.

And that changes the integrity of the game.

As Connor Thomas of 97.,5 The Fanatic pointed out, it would be completely absurd for the second NBA game on backto-back nights to be shortened to three quarters or for the second hockey game in two nights to be cut to two periods. So why is it OK in baseball?

It affects cumulative stats, like home runs, hits and strikeouts, since pitchers and batters are shortchanged two innings compared to others not playing in as many doubleheaders during the season.

Also, as Thomas wrote, “The flow of the game significantly changes by cutting off the last two innings of a ball game, as the bullpen innings are now effectively cut in half.”

As Boston Red Sox pitcher Adam Ottovino told Sports Illustrated when he was pitching for the Yankees during last year’s pandemic-shortened season, “I like nine and nine personally. I don’t want to be marginalized out of the game, once we go seven-inning games, it’s a slippery slope there and maybe there’s no more relief pitchers or something like that.”

As Thomas argued, “In seven-inning doubleheaders, the advantage of elite starting pitching like a (Jacob) deGrom is magnified to an almost unfair level. All of this leads to wins that are either easier to come by, or simply don’t tell the full story… Seemingly every night there is an eighth or ninth inning that results in a lead change that ends up changing the outcome of the contest.

I agree with Elias Sports Bureau refusing to count a seven-inning game as a no-hitter. Baseball has been playing nine-inning doubleheaders for over 100 years. Just because Manfred wants to make games shorter should not force the hand of the statisticians. A nohitter means nine innings of no-hit ball. In high school a no-hitter can be seven innings because that is the standard length of a game. But in the major leagues, nine innings is the standard length, so a pitcher needs to throw that many innings to call it a no-hitter.

Some players and managers don’t agree. After Bumgarner’s seven-inning gem, he told AZ Central, “I mean, I don’t know, I didn’t give up any hits today. I’m not in control of how many innings we’re playing.”

“Still a no-hitter,” said his catcher, Carson Kelly. “Today, we came in knowing it was a seven-inning game. That’s what we were told, and we gave up no hits in seven innings. That’s how I’m going to look at it.”

They are entitled to look at it that way. And in the post-game interview, Bumgarner gave a shoutout to Manfred for seveninning doubleheaders.

I guess things have changed since Ernie

Banks cheerfully declared, “Let’s play two!” If Mr.

Cub were still with us today for one of these seveninning doubleheaders, he would probably say, “Let’s play three!”