NY, Connecticut minor league baseball teams seek faster game, to experiment with 5-pitch rule

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The rules in the Atlantic League experimental game call for a batter to be called out if he fouls off a pitch with two strikes.

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The rules also give batters a walk after three balls, not four.

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The league has made headlines before with other speed-up rules such as a courtesy runner for the catcher with 2 outs and limiting visits to the mound. This seems a little over the top, though.

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courtesy runner for the catcher with 2 outs

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Should be done all the time.

Don't mess with the rules of baseball. It's a finely-tuned machine. Besides, WHY do games really need to be faster? When it boils down to it, not everything in life has to be rush, rush, rush.

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I agree that you don't need to change the rules to shorten games, but game times are getting out of hand.

It's on the pitchers though, not the rules. I remember going to Oswalt games back in the day and knowing you weren't going to be there more than 2:45 or so beca use his average game length was right around 2:30.

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I agree that you don't need to change the rules to shorten games, but game times are getting out of hand.

It's on the pitchers though, not the rules. I remember going to Oswalt games back in the day and knowing you weren't going to be there more than 2:45 or so beca use his average game length was right around 2:30.

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Comparing MLB to rec softball. WTF?

These rules are applied in various parts of DFW.

MLB is currently happy with pace of game rules in place because they have trimmed averaage game times by 8 minutes!!! 8 whole minutes... Are you kidding me??? People cant sit at the ballpark for an extra 8 minutes??? Relax people... Enjoy the game!!!

I wonder what the average time would be minus the Yankees' and Red Sox' games.