It’s long been the worst part about following the Red Sox. The games finish too darn late.
For the past two decades the Red Sox have perennially averaged among the longest game times in baseball; in recent years, often well over three hours. Since 2003, the club has led the league in 10 of 20 seasons and never ranked lower than fourth.
That’s meant games regularly stretching deep into the night, often well past 10 p.m., sometimes even until almost 11.
For fans who have work or school the next day, or for parents of young children, that’s a lot to ask. Yet intractable as the problem seemed, MLB’s new pace-of-play rules appear to have finally provided a solution.
Tuesday night, Red Sox fans got their first taste of what a difference the pitch clock could really make. After a couple of long games to open the season, the Red Sox and Pirates played a quick 2:36 affair, which moved along at a brisk pace and wrapped up at around 9:45 p.m.
Wednesday afternoon’s series finale was even faster, with the Red Sox falling to the Pirates 4-1 in only 2:32.
If that winds up becoming anywhere near the norm going forward, the Red Sox viewing experience will be forever transformed for the better.
“I think these new rule changes are going to be extraordinary,” Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy said in a mid-February interview.
What difference does that half hour make? Think of it this way. You get to the ballpark around 7 p.m., get yourself a hot dog and something to drink and take your seat. The game starts, you’re having a great time, and a little while later you look up and it’s 9 p.m.
In past years you might then notice the game is only in the fifth inning. You’re barely halfway through, there’s probably still at least an hour to go, if not more, and you’ve got to wake up early the next day. Are you sticking around until the end? Probably not.
But this year, maybe you look up and the game is in the seventh inning. Now things are coming down to the wire and the game might only take another half hour to wrap up.
It’s not hard to see why sticking around might become a lot more appealing.
Other clubs have struggled with long games as well, and a solution many have opted for is earlier start times. This season the Detroit Tigers joined a growing list of clubs that have pushed their games back to 6:40 on weeknights, which helps get fans home earlier but makes it tougher for fans to get to the ballpark in time for first pitch.
Kennedy said the club explored the possibility before ultimately deciding to stick with the status quo, believing the pitch clock might accomplish the same goals without the logistical drawbacks earlier starts present.
“We prefer as many traditional games as we can for night time starts in the 7 p.m. hour,” Kennedy said. “Obviously we have city concerns and traffic concerns and the ingress and egress out of Fenway Park, it’s better for television, it’s better for the certainty of play. That said we are open-minded about adjusting start times and I think you will see some different start times but generally with the rule changes that are going to pick up the pace of the game I think the 7 p.m. window is the right time to start night games.”
No matter when the games have started the new rules’ impact has been pronounced. Entering Wednesday the average MLB game had taken 2:38 to complete, compared to 3:06 last year, and there have been a handful that have flown by at an astonishing speed.
For instance, on Tuesday night Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara polished off a 1-0 complete game shutout win over the Minnesota Twins in just 1:57.
The fans aren’t the only ones who benefit from the quicker games. Red Sox manager Alex Cora said it was nice getting home at a reasonable hour Tuesday ahead of Wednesday’s getaway day, and the experience has exposed just how far the sport had gotten from what it used to be.
“We were in a bad place,” Cora said, adding that now he can actually stay up to the end of west coast games. “I think the game is going to be the game, it’s the game that we love and it’s actually better this way than with the four-hour games and just the grind of it.”
Even with the pitch clock, Boston is still playing some of the longest games in baseball – “we’re the Red Sox,” Cora joked – but now a long game should only take around three hours to finish instead of four.
Maybe the Red Sox will end up having a good season, maybe they won’t, but one way or the other the experience of actually watching the team should be the best it’s been in a long time.