Pace of game at what cost?

​By Chris Moore


A new minor league rule for the 2018 season finds a runner automatically placed on second base during extra inning games. As early as the second game of the AA season, the Hartford Yard Goats found themselves in a position to experience the repercussions of this new rule.


My understanding of the rule is that it is designed to limit the duration of games, to speed up the pace of play to such a degree as to satisfy the demands of a modern baseball audience. This being said, it flies in the face of more than a century of precedent and history, not to mention that it promises to trigger predictable strategic approaches.


This was on full display in the top of the tenth on April 6 at Dunkin Donuts Park as New Hampshire Fisher Cats first baseman Gunnar Heidt laid down a sacrifice bunt to lead off the extra innings affair, moving his man to third. Two strikeouts later, the Yard Goats came up, and it was deja vu: Hartford catcher Chris Rabago attempted to bunt the Hartford baserunner to third but fouled out, followed by two strikeouts to end the inning.


At this point, the pattern and the problem seems clear: putting a runner on second to start extra innings is a shortcut to formulated, means-to-an-end sportsmanship in which sacrifice bunts become cookie cutter inning openers.


Unsurprisingly, the Fisher Cats opened the eleventh with a sacrifice bunt by third baseman Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. A triple and a double later, the Cats were on the board to the tune of two runs. In the bottom of the frame, Hartford shortstop Brendan Rodgers — shockingly — ultimately skipped the bunt attempt in favor of an RBI single. A double play and strikeout later, the Fisher Cats walked away with their second win in their second game of the season.


The Yard Goats failed to match the results that New Hampshire did, though the question remains: what would the result have been if each team had to work for each bag, just as every baseball team in every season prior has had to. In a sense, it is reassuring that the Cats didn’t win by simply plating the placed runner: their triple and double alone would have sealed the victory. Still, there is something inauthentic about an unearned runner in scoring position that troubles me at the core. Will I ever unquestioningly nod and smile when my team uses two sac bunts to win a game? I can’t imagine that day coming, yet here we are, toying with the concept.