No, the Pitch Clock Won’t Take Anything Away From Baseball’s Greatest Moments

There’s no reason to go back to the dawdling pace that the sport previously adopted, even for one inning.

Please, no. Just stop. Stop this foolish talk about adding more time on the pitch clock in the ninth inning or postseason or, good heavens, turning off the best thing to happen to baseball in years.

Stop telling me the pitch timer will deprive us of the “drama” of big moments. Stop telling me we can’t have any more Kirk Gibson moments because players are “rushed”.

Baseball is red hot right now because the timer has excised 28 minutes of dead time from the average game. More action, less time. And now you want to put dead time back in the game for the purpose of ... what exactly? To build a “narrative”? When did the World Series become a Kubrick flick that needs to take its sweet time for dramatic effect?

Last season Houston closer Ryan Pressly averaged one pitch every 32.9 seconds to throw seven pitches to get the last three outs of the World Series—with a three-run lead and nobody on base.

Why in the world would you ever want to go back to that dull game? Why would you want a completely different set of pace rules for one inning or one month of the season? Madness. Thankfully the competition committee, while open to tweaking some commonsense protocols, has shown no interest in expanding or eliminating time on the clock. “That’s when we need it more,” said one high-ranking executive about the postseason.

The average time of a postseason game last year was 3:32. That’s 26 more minutes of dead time from the regular season.

The “we need more time” whine is a modern canard. Baseball was not played slowly for a hundred years, until recent years when analytics, Velcro, iPads in the dugout, sign stealing paranoia, deep bullpens, copious scouting reports and the “high performance” mantra of “slow the game down” ground a beautiful game to an inglorious slog.

The argument for slowing the ninth inning and/or the postseason likes to pretend the WBC-ending duel between Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout was made dramatic because the tournament did not use a pitch timer. Ohtani threw Trout six pitches. His first pitch was an 88-mph sweeper. He used only 15 seconds to throw his next one, which would have been a legal pitch with a timer. But he exceeded 15 seconds after each of his next four pitches, probably because all of them were 100 mph or more and he took that time to recover and max out again. Those times between pitches: 19, 24, 28 and 24 seconds, all of which are violations in regular-season play this year with nobody on base.

Ohtani’s battle with Trout was an all-time moment—but not because of the slower pace :: Rhona Wise/USA TODAY Sports

Folks, that extra dead time did not make the moment. It was Ohtani vs. Trout with two outs in the ninth of a one-run championship game that made the moment. Somehow, we have a hundred years of dramatic moments without players dawdling, which I will prove to you with data, not some narrative gobbledygook.

You can’t get much more dramatic than a World Series clincher. Let’s look at pace of action in the past eight World Series clinchers and compare it to the pace of action in eight World Series clinchers from 30 years ago:

World Series Clinchers

	Time of Game	Runs Per Game	Minutes Per BIP	Minutes Per Run
2015 to ‘22	3:38	7.38	4:38	29:32
1985 to ‘92	3:10	7.88	3:17	24:07

Which game do you prefer? Give me the World Series clinchers that took 28 minutes less with more runs and more action. Clinchers in the past eight years are 40% slower than 30 years ago, as measured by the average wait to see a ball put in play. (That also accounts for an increase in strikeouts.)

In clinchers from 1985 to ’92 we got to see the Blue Jays and Twins win the World Series in extra innings, Orel Hershiser throw a complete game and the Mets rally against the Red Sox but somehow you want to convince me those games weren’t dramatic because the games were played too fast?

If you’re young, you’ve been conditioned to equate slow with drama. (Get back to me when the NFL and NBA add time to their play clocks in the fourth quarter for “dramatic effect.”) If you’re older you’ve forgotten how baseball should be played—even in the ninth inning and even with the World Series on the line.

Time for more facts. Let’s go back to some dramatic at-bats and put them under 2023 pitch timer protocols. I timed each pitch after the first one of the at-bat:

Joe Carter home run to end 1993 World Series

Action	Seconds
Ball	18
Pickoff attempt at second base	16
Called strike	15
Swinging strike	13
Home run	19

Timer “violations:” Zero of four
Mitch Williams never wanders off the back of the mound. Carter is ready to hit.

Mookie Wilson Ground ball (Bill Buckner error) to end 1986 World Series Game 6

Action	Seconds
Ball	10
Ball	10
Foul	14
Foul	10
Foul	12
Wild pitch	13
Foul	NA
Foul	19
Timeout (Wilson broken bat)
Ground ball	10

Timer “violations:” Zero of eight
Trying to close out a world championship for Boston, Bob Stanley works quickly.

Kirk Gibson HR off Dennis Eckersley to end 1988 World Series Game 1

Action	Seconds
Pickoff attempt	19
Foul	17
Pickoff attempt	20
Pickoff attempt	18
Foul	11
Umpire timeout
Ball	2
Foul	20
Ball	18
Pickoff attempt	17
Ball (and stolen base)	17
Mound visit
Gibson timeout
Home run	4

Timer “violations:” Zero of 11
Eckersley never wanders off the pitching rubber. Gibson was slow to get into the box initially but as a pinch hitter he would be afforded discretion by the umpire. Eckersley would not be allowed more than two unsuccessful pickoff attempts.

Compare those dramatic moments to more recent ones:

Yordan Alvarez HR off Jose Alvarado, 2022 World Series Game 6

Action	Seconds
Ball	26
Ball	20
Home run	27

Timer “violations:” Two of three
Alvarado likes to rub up the baseball between pitches.

Rajai Davis HR off Aroldis Chapman, 2016 World Series Game 7

Action	Seconds
Foul	14
Foul	24
Ball	27
Foul	15
Foul	21
Home run	35

Timer “violations:” Four of six
Chapman works very slowly.

The World Series clincher last season lasted 3:13, almost the same as the 1986 clincher by the Mets over the Red Sox. But there is no comparison in pace of action:

	Time	Runs	Balls in play	Minutes/BIP
2022	3:13	5	35	5:31
1986	3:11	13	55	3:28

Players have done a tremendous job this season adapting to the pitch timer. Runs, singles, doubles, home runs and stolen bases are up (so are walks and strikeouts) in the quickest average time of game in 42 years. The average time between balls in play has been cut from 3:49 to 3:16. Five months from now this new pace of play will be even more ingrained.

Let’s never go back to the dawdling pace that caused so many people to stop following baseball because it was too slow. Not for a month. Not for an inning. Not for one moment of dead time.