Pitch Clock Kept 66% of Opening Day Games to Less Than Three Hours

Day 1 results:

To say the pitch clock was smash success on Opening Day would be a gross understatement. We're talking best rule change ever. Only 5 of 15 games went over 3 hours.

The scores of 3 of the 5 gms that went over 3 hrs: 10-9, 10-9, 11-7.

Here are the times for the Opening Day games. pic.twitter.com/Vn92CPlYFU

— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) March 31, 2023

Phillies/Rangers was one of the five games to eclipse three hours, probably because deGrom was fuckin’ faking with the PitchCom thing to buy time, but even then, it didn’t feel like a long game, at least to me. I’m sure most people had some kind of commute home, or had to cook dinner, or had to pick up their kids, and that broke up the game, so you weren’t exactly getting the full feel of the pacing, but it started just after 4 and ended just after 7, which is exactly what MLB was looking for.

I’d also like to know what was happening in the Tigers/Rays game, because it went only 2:04. That’s shorter than a soccer game. They played that thing at light speed.

So the Phillies hit a homer and two groundball triples, the Rangers’ PitchCom breaks, it starts raining in our domed stadium, and deGrom exits early.

Then we score 9.

I do love baseball.

— Ryan Osborne (@RyanOsborne31) March 30, 2023