“We’re all hoping for the same thing-where it’s baseball. The Guardians staff said that it's alright, as long as the integrity of the game stays the same. Through the first week of the season: runs, hits, batting averages, on-base and slugging percentages are all up over previous yearly averages. And that’s what their goal was.”Įven with the early and small sample size, the numbers are proving the changes are effective. “No doubt the numbers that Major League Baseball has compiled during spring training are showing there’s more hits in these exhibition games,” Olney said. This is in an effort to increase offensive production. We’ll get to that.”Īnother major rule change that comes with the 2023 season includes eliminating the defensive shift. “I need to start just paying attention to the game.

“I’ve caught myself looking at the clock, when in reality I can’t do anything about it,” said Guardians manager Terry Francona. The clock is even becoming a bit of a distraction in the dugout early on. “I still don’t know when they start it, when they reset it.”

“There was a couple times I felt rushed, if I’m being quiet honest,” said Guardians pitcher Shane Bieber, following his first start in Cleveland’s season-opener. While many fans may enjoy the immediate change to the game, players may take a little more time to adjust. “I’m home two, three hours later, so I’m good with that as a coach,” said Cleveland baseball legend Sandy Alomar. An average of 2 hours, 28 minutes per game is a drastic decrease from the 3-hour and 4-minute ball game last season. Through baseball's opening series league-wide, the average game time has decreased by nearly half an hour from 2022. “That’s what we’re going to see in baseball this year, a game time reduction of 20, 25, 30 minutes.” “I think it’s going to help baseball’s product immensely,” said ESPN baseball analyst Buster Olney. The most attention-grabbing rule change for 2023 includes the pitch clock.

“Our research showed that the game had evolved and changed in a way that fans didn’t like,” said Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred. CLEVELAND - The clock is ticking and while time passes by, the game of baseball is also changing.

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