If Commissioner Bud Selig absolutely wants to accomplish baseball amateur shorter, he ability demand to acquaint Derek Jeter and every added affiliate of the Yankees and the Red Sox to aces up the clip aback they accommodated afresh at Fenway Park on Friday.
For all his accomplishments, Jeter is additionally a archetypal out-of-the-batter’s-box dawdler. His three-to-six-step ankle amid pitches helped accumulation on the account in the three amateur that Boston and the Yankees played in Fenway at the alpha of the season, amateur that took so continued that the adept adjudicator Joe West denounced the aboriginal two of them as “pathetic and embarrassing.”
Those three amateur lasted 3 hours 46 minutes, 3:48 and 3:21, the final one a almost accelerated activity because it went to 10 innings. West was on the acreage for all 10 hours 55 account of the three games, so no admiration he was annoyed. And now, a ages later, the Yankees and the Red Sox are appropriate aback at it, teams accepted for amateur that assume to go on forever, alike if they are generally allusive and tense.
The breadth of baseball amateur has been an affair that has affronted Selig for years and it is a key account on the calendar of the 14-member board that Selig has formed to advance improvements to the sport. For starters, the console ability demand to booty a attending at Bold 2 of that Yankees-Red Sox series, the one that lasted 3:48 on April 6 and concluded with the Yankees winning, 6-4, in nine innings.
A abundant analysis of that game, aided by a stopwatch, accent all the quirks, idiosyncrasies and accustomed rituals that can apathetic baseball, decidedly aback the Yankees and the Red Sox are playing.
Before about every angle of that bold in which Jeter was at bat, he stepped out of the box for an boilerplate of 13.6 seconds. He blew on his hands, tucked his bat beneath his larboard arm and broke his spikes. His assistant Robinson Cano delayed alike more, averaging 18.7 abnormal afore clearing aback in. Cano stroked his bat, adapted his gloves and wristbands, adequate his bat amid his legs, and took convenance strokes.
Jeter and Cano led the Yankees in out-of-the-box dabbling that night (and David Ortiz and Victor Martinez led the Red Sox). But there were added factors at comedy on April 6, including the addiction of both teams to be accommodating and booty a lot of pitches.
The bold was adamantine fought, as are abounding Yankees-Red Sox games, which led to time-consuming casting changes, abundant pitcher-catcher conferences and visits to the bank from the casting coach. And all games, not aloof those involving the Red Sox and the Yankees, accept diffuse bartering break and a bang area that doesn’t absolutely acquiesce for a rulebook aerial strike.
That aftermost affair has bent the absorption of Orel Hershiser, the above Los Angeles Dodgers bullpen and accepted baseball analyst for ESPN. “If you accept added strikes called, you get the hitters added afraid and he puts the bat in motion afore bang two,” he said.
Perhaps Selig’s board will abode Hershiser’s contention, although antecedent efforts to nudge the bang area college don’t assume to accept had a abiding impact. The breadth of the boilerplate bold has alone hardly in the aftermost decade, but not a lot. Meanwhile, the Yankees and the Red Sox are consistently demography best to comedy nine innings than every added aggregation and they booty alike best aback they comedy anniversary other.
Since 2002, their nine-inning amateur accept averaged 3:18, as abundant as 32 account best than the baseball average. From 1999 to 2009, the Yankees played the longest amateur in baseball 10 times; from 2006 to 2009, the Red Sox were additional to the Yankees three times in breadth of amateur and angry with them at a league-leading 3:02 boilerplate in 2008.
Still, Yankees Manager Joe Girardi is unapologetic about the clip at which his apple champions play.
“Guys are there to comedy baseball,” he said afore Wednesday’s bold adjoin Baltimore. “Guys aren’t there to accomplish a time limit. We’re there to win games, not get accomplished in two and a bisected hours. So I apprehend our players to comedy hard, abide to be careful and do the things they charge to win a game.”
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