Guardians play fastest game in majors in 2023 with pitch clock
If you’re going to “Take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the crowd” then you might want to do so with a little more sense of urgency this season. America’s pastime isn’t passing as much time.
Baseball’s new world is here. And that seventh inning stretch will often be arriving much earlier than it used to, which is the entire point of Major League Baseball’s pitch clock rule that adds a little hustle to both hitters and pitchers between pitches.
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The Guardians’ first three games of the season have featured lengths of two hours and 14 minutes, three hours and five minutes and two hours and four minutes, respectively.
Cleveland’s Opening Day game and Saturday night’s 2-0 win were games that didn’t feature much offense, so they’ll likely be outliers to an extent. But two of the first three games finishing in under 2:14 is certainly notable nonetheless. Saturday’s 2:04 game was MLB’s fastest thus far in 2023. And it was Cleveland’s fastest game since May 18, 2011 (two hours, one minute).
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The Guardians’ 9-4 win Friday night featured Mariners starter Robbie Ray struggling to find the strike zone (91 pitches in only 3⅓ innings) and Guardians starter Hunter Gaddis being knocked around a bit as well (four earned runs, 70 pitches in 3⅔ innings). But even that game, played in 3:05, was still one minute under MLB’s average game length in 2022.
It’s likely that most Guardians games will fall somewhere between their three game lengths thus far. But it’s clear the pitch clock — which forces both hitters and pitchers to be ready for the next pitch earlier than in the past — is working to shorten games. After MLB averaged 3:05 per game in 2022, Cactus League and Grapefruit League games averaged two hours, 37 minutes this spring.
And on Opening Day this year, the average game length was 2:45, although that average was actually pulled up by a 3:38 game between the Toronto Blue Jays and St. Louis Cardinals that featured 19 runs and 34 hits. Ten of Friday’s 15 games were played in under three hours. Only the Cardinals-Blue Jays game ran longer than 3:10.
Ryan Lewis can be reached at [email protected]. Read more about the Guardians at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/cleveland-guardians. Follow him on Twitter at @ByRyanLewis.
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