Diamondbacks right-hander Brandon McCarthy is, in this writer’s humble opinion, the best baseball-related follow on Twitter. Most athletes post religious and/or motivational quotes and typical post-game cliches with a minimum of real interaction with fans, but McCarthy makes it a point to acknowledge at least a good portion of those sending him tweets. He mixes in original and thoughtful tweets about the game he plays along with a nice serving of humor.
Yesterday, McCarthy shared his opinion on extra-inning games in baseball. He doesn’t like them, and thinks games should go no more than 11 innings.I’m probably in the minority, but anything more than 11 innings in a baseball game is dumb. 162 games is enough to have ties included.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) July 4, 2013It’s always been done that way, so I get it, but it would definitely be one of the rules I’d change if I could.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) July 4, 2013@sabometrics nine innings starter+ 2 best relievers I guess. Game quality falls off dramatically after 11th
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) July 4, 2013It’s certainly interesting food for thought, even if there’s very little chance anything gets changed. And he’s right about the quality of the game being worse in extra innings: pitchers this year have allowed a .735 OPS in extras, higher than any single regulation inning. The aggregate strikeout-to-walk ratio is a meager 1.8, lower by far than the lowest regulation inning (1st inning, 2.3) and pitchers allow hits on balls in play at a .315 clip compared to the overall .295 league average. That is because, the longer the game goes, the worse the pitching gets as managers reach deeper and deeper into the bullpen, sometimes having to rely on position players pitching. Similarly, the quality of defense falls as managers use one-dimensional pinch-hitters who must then play the field.