Pitch clock cut MLB Opening Day games down significantly
Major League Baseball officially began the pitch-clock era on Thursday, and so far, it's doing its job.
According to Baseball America, the average game time for Opening Day this year was 2 hours, 42 minutes, down 29 minutes from the previous season.
While it's a small sample size, the data confirms what spring training already proved: The pitch clock significantly cuts game times. With the pitch clock in use this spring, the average game time decreased by 26 minutes compared to last year.
The pitch clock also revealed another sign that the rules instituted this offseason are producing the desired results. On Opening Day, only five of 15 games crossed the three-hour mark. Of those five games, three were high-scoring, averaging 19 runs scored. While this is another speck of information during a long baseball season, it shows that the pitch clock encourages more action during a game, which leads to more offense.
Pitch-clock detractors feared how violations may impact the game's flow, but during the spring, offenses declined as the schedule progressed. The same is likely to occur during the regular season. Through 15 games on Thursday, there were only 14 pitch-clock violations, with Chicago Cubs right-hander Marcus Stroman making history as the first offender.
Plenty of baseball remains left to play, and MLB's new rules will come under more scrutiny throughout the year. However, after only one day, things went relatively well, especially for those clamoring for shorter baseball games.
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