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MLB’s pitch timer has had some unintended consequences — for team broadcasters

Last week, I noted here that the new pitch timer had increased the pace of play in spring games thus far to the point where Cubs spring games were almost half an hour faster than they were at similar points over the previous five spring seasons.

This has continued over the last week. Several Cubs games were completed in 2:20 or shorter. If this keeps up, we could have the shortest average MLB game time since the 1970s this year.

Once the regular season begins I would expect games to run a bit longer. The first reason is that teams aren’t really playing much situational baseball now.