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Major League Baseball has seen many changes in recent years to which many fans, and even players, had to get used to it.
From timers to larger bases, limitation of visits to mounds to pitchcom and potentially automated bullets and strikes, the game is a product different from that in the pre-Pandemic era.
The biggest change, however, is that the average duration of a game has been shortened by more than half an hour.
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St. Louis Cardinals, Adam Wainwright (50), offers a field during a match against Milwaukee Brewers on September 14, 2022, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (Rick Ulreich / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
This statistic reached its peak when the average match of nine rounds lasted three hours, 10 minutes. MLB implemented a pitch timer in 2023, and this number was shortened at 2:39. The following year, three other minutes were saved, but two of them were returned this year.
Adam Wainwright of the former Cardinals of St. Louis launched in the mid -2000s and retired after the first year of implementation of the field clock, and while his career has reached his nine, he began to notice the duration of the games.
“It has become a little too much, probably,” said Wainwright in a recent interview with PK Press Club Digital.
Wainwright does not miss the long games, declaring: “The duration of the game is now perfect.” But there is one thing he misses about the old days.
“I miss the days when it is the bottom of the ninth, these are the playoffs, there is so much drama, a launcher can go out and be able to think about what he will then launch and build the drama even more. And then you are in a way seated there and you say to yourself:” What will happen? “I miss it,” said Wainwright.
The launcher starting from the cardinals of St. Louis, Adam Wainwright, reacts after Trea Turner of Los Angeles Dodgers put a double game game in the third round of a eliminatory match of the National League on Wednesday October 6, 2021 in Los Angeles. (AP photo / Marcio Jose Sanchez)
The legend of cardinals Adam Wainwright honoring the late launcher of the Darryl Kile team while increasing the awareness of heart health
“From another point of view, the fact that I miss the launcher through order, has time to leave”, what do you know? I miss this capacity, because when you are on the mound, and you recover the ball, and you look at the recipient, you have eight seconds at that time. I am a launcher of the man who thinks, I love the side of thought.
Wainwright also saw the total overhaul of the analysis implemented in the game, but even a wise veteran as he took a lot of information.
“And in many ways, that was good. There is so much information that a launcher needs. There is a happy medium there where the old-fashioned analysis and meeting which is probably the perfect sweet spot. I appreciated the slow camera that shows you exactly why the spin was better on this certain field. Or it does not hit it, why does not strike it?
But, like everyone else, there are times when the analysis is too much, including a moment when Wainwright said that he was lucky after having released Freddie Freeman.
“I brought him out on a terrible-sausage cutter that I was trying to get stuck under his hands. I threw him from top to bottom, and he put it on the second basis. And therefore, Analytics returned and said:” Look, if you come back this cutter again, the analytical side is said to be a fairly good pitch for you. “And it’s just not something that a launcher will try to reproduce.
The launcher of the cardinals of St. Louis, Adam Wainwright, worked against the Braves of Atlanta in the first round of the opening match of a double Saturday June 19, 2021 in Atlanta. (AP photo / Ben Margot)
“There are things that, in information, you take everything, and then you have to say:” Ok, I understand you, but it’s a computer, it does not understand the human side of things. I never want to try to throw this pitch again. It was totally lucky, and if I throw it again, it would be a disaster. “So, you filter all these things, then you put it through the filter, then you go:” Ok, I really like it, I really like that. And so you make your decision on the basis of this. “”
Regarding rules changes, they seem to have brought fans, because the average attendance should exceed 29,000 per game for the third consecutive year, the first section of this type since before 2017. It should also be noted that two teams, athletics and the rays of Tampa Bay, play in minor ball parks this year, which limits the presence of 162 games.
Each of the last two seasons has been the first time since 2011 and 2012 that attendance has increased in consecutive seasons.
