Very clearly, the 2018 All-Star Game in Washington DC last week was representative of the current state of the sport of baseball. The ten home runs they hit set an all-time record for the Midsummer Classic, nearly double the previous high of six.
That long ball production is indicative of the season, which is on track to see more home runs than any other year in baseball’s long history. That stat isn’t the only record to be eclipsed in 2018, and the All-Star Game reflected it, too.
Players strike out 25 percent of the time now, a frequency that will result in a record number of strikeouts in 2018. It was no surprise then that pitchers in the Midsummer Classic fanned 25 batters in total.
Just as that highly touted contest highlighted the sport’s reliance on the home run and strikeout, it was another game a week earlier that served as a microcosm of some of baseball’s biggest problems. Commissioner Rob Manfred and officials across the sport would rather ignore that game, which would be easy to do considering how few people actually saw it.
The Tampa Bay Rays played the Marlins in Miami on July 3, an intrastate battle that should have created all kinds of excitement in the home of spring training and three pennants. To underscore the serious attendance problem baseball has had there for more than two decades, only 6,000 people attended.
The game itself was sixteen innings, lasting nearly six hours, and featured forty-four different batsmen between the two clubs. Eighteen different pitchers took to the mound, in addition to the other three who were called up to pinch hit or play a position at some point during the Sunshine State Bore-a-thon.
When it finally ended, roughly two hundred fans remained in their seats. Miami’s main office rewarded those few loyal souls by handing out two free tickets each.
A better gift for them, and for most baseball fans, would be for the sport to adapt the extra-inning rule that began in the Minors this year. If tied after nine innings, each team begins the extra inning with a runner on second. That situation would almost guarantee that a game would be decided long before the 16 innings it took before Tampa Bay finally beat Miami.
In addition to reinforcing the fact that games are too long, that night also exposed another problem plaguing the sport. He must force the National League to adopt the designated hitter rule.
Because they were playing in Miami, the Rays had to let their pitchers hit. This stipulation might not be a new problem for starting pitchers, who have been used to getting at least one plate appearance in an interleague road game.
However, having to hit presents a real problem for the multitude of relievers on the staff, as most of them never swing a bat all season. What can happen when they’re forced into that role is exactly what happened to a Tampa reliever that night.
Left-handed pitcher Vidal Nuna strained a hamstring while running toward first base after hitting a groundout, putting him on the 10-day disabled list. The injury never would have occurred if baseball had enforced a universal DH rule, and could also have been avoided if the extra innings rule had been used at the Major League level rather than just in the Minors.