Time for a More Merciful Major League Baseball
So the Minnesota Twins and the Tampa Bay Rays battled in the Trop the other night. The Rays blew the doors wide open on the fourth inning by increasing their lead to 11 with a barrage of hits and run-scoring. The game was pretty much all but sealed by the time we made it to the sixth inning with the score being 11-2. The Rays would pick up 3 more runs and stretch it to a 14-2 whooping. Now we know the season of baseball is long, so therefore the final few innings must have been a drag as most of the starting lineup was gone and only random back-of-the-bin pitchers were left to close out the beatdown.
I have a proposal that will meet a lot of resistance because it impedes on the spirit of baseball but it’s still a topic worthy of discussing:
is it time for Major League Baseball to take a page from Little League Baseball and adopt a mercy rule?
Think about it, the fans can be treated to a potential walk-off win in the 7th innings, you can prevent potential pointless injuries in the final garbage time moments, it provides an added pressure to the losing team to try to salvage the game (especially if it’s happening in the postseason), and can cut down on games that may drag on a bit unnecessarily. It provides closure sooner when a game gets out of hand, and isn’t this worth exploring?
My idea is that after the sixth inning, if the lead is greater, than 10 runs, the game is over, no matter what. A game is considered official after five, so it gives warning to both teams that it’s in the books and if the team that’s down a plethora of runs wants a fraction of a chance to catch up, they need to start preparing. In the case of the Rays/Twins matchup, Ji-Man Choi’s 2-run home run would have been the game-clincher, as the lead went past 10 on the bottom half of the inning and the fans can start packing up to go home. It would create that cool feeling of a walk-off even though the game was pretty much done.
This would speed up games that have already gotten out of hand, would prevent position players from having to pitch, would prevent pointless injuries, and would allow added rest for players during an already-lengthy season. And in the playoffs, it would allow for the game to fold over quickly and focus on the next game in the series. Also imagine an elimination game where the team that can advance is up 10 runs in the 5th inning, this would create additional panic and drama in the middle innings as their season is even closer to the finish line. This is a small idea that wouldn’t have to be implemented often, but can create additional quality drama and competitive play as one team clings to survival, and the other is inches from finishing it off.
There are indeed setbacks though. Imagine a player pitching a perfect game to the seventh inning, and his team suddenly starts smashing home runs. It would be a travesty for the pitcher to lose his perfect game bid because the opponents floundered and gave up a dozen runs in a single inning. Of course, there’s also the alcohol issue, as the normal procedure is that the stadium stops selling alcohol on the seventh. Well what if the game is out of hand in the fifth? Do you limit the alcohol sales because of a potentially early exit? This is where the stadium management has to figure out the proper way to monitor the alcohol sales and the game at the same time.
Lastly, baseball relies on the mantra of “it ain’t over until it’s over.” There have been games where a team was down multiple runs even on the final innings. The largest comeback in MLB history was the Indians’ 12-run comeback to beat the Mariners back in 2001. The largest ninth-inning rally was in the early 1900s with a 10-run spot to win the game. But these are too far in between to use as a counterargument to implementing a mercy rule to increase the pace of a regular season matchup.
There are 162 games in each season for each team. With offense explosions happening left and right in the homerun-or-strikeout era, a mercy rule would be beneficial for fans, for players, for even the playoffs, and for Major League Baseball.