ESPN: Why did those World Series games last so long?

[Otto von Ballpark]

I thought this was an informative article at ESPN: "Why did those World Series games last so long?"

 

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27977973/why-did-world-series-games-last-long

 

They study Game 4, a 4-1 Astros win which took 4 hours, 3 minutes. 4-1 regular season games this year averaged only 2 hours, 55 minutes. Here's what they found made up the 68 minute difference:

1. Commercials (17 extra minutes)

2. The type of game that happened to be played (around 27 extra minutes)

3. Postseason-specific dawdling (around 24 extra minutes)

 

Personally, it would be nice to speed the regular season games by about ~20 minutes (pitch clock, stay in the box, not granting time) and reduce the baseline for postseason games -- and maybe cut even further into the #3 dawdling time.

[jkcarew]

Unwatchable.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

It was a great series, but man that was too long. I like the split screen commercials. I wish we’d see more of that in baseball especially, but the three other big sports too.

 

They’re all taking longer and longer.

 

As a plus, the split screen ads would reach the wider streaming audiences. They would have to cost more.

[ewen21]

If anyone wants to know why pitchers can't go deep into games like they used to look no further than the time it takes to play these games.  How in the world can a guy stay warm to pitch for 3:30, 4:00 hours and more?  I think there is a threshold somewhere around 2:30 where a guy just can't go further 9 times out of 10.  It isn't because the players today work out too much.