An MLB game under 2 hours?!?

Yesterday something happened in big league baseball that I didn't think was possible without Greg Maddox on the mound. We had a baseball game that was played in under two hours.

Although we did have one last year as well. In June Cardinals Brewers or something like that with a with a one-nothing final score of a minute 54. But last night uh Sandy Alcantara of the Miami Marlins tossed a three-hit shutout winning one nothing in 157. I mean that's just that is speedy.

If that happened in Los Angeles people would be arriving in like the seventh inning. Elliot Johnson our favorite former big leaguer. What was that have you ever been involved in a game that quick at the big league level? No, no not even close.

I mean things are so much different now. There's so much more sense of urgency you know and nobody wants to get Manny Machado. Understands the rules and they're going to take it seriously Adam. He got tossed because he wasn't he argued not being in the box right is that that's why he got uh got thrown out of the game right. He was he had called time right and uh granted time and so he he he was embarrassed and you know I think if I'm him I'm pretty pissed and I wanted to make sure look if I'm allotted one time and I did it before the time then Colpa's got to give it to him you know but Colpa and a lot of the umpires of course I'm sure that Manfred has made it abundantly clear that that this is a priority and so they're going to enforce it and make sure that things are moving along rather than you know siding with somebody that slows things down. I would like I would like to see the game the rules be strictly enforced now and then maybe as the season wears on you can tweak a little bit or relax a little bit give some leeway um the I never thought the pitch clock would work. I never thought the pitch clock would make a noticeable difference. Opening day the median game time two hours and 38 minutes the median the average was 2 45. Yesterday 14 games were played in the big leagues the average game time was 2 33. Now like I don't know how people process it I think it's more about pace of the game as opposed to the time of the game but that pace has to be good if the time is that what have what has been your impression so far? Well I've been on this show with you Adam when you've asked me in the past and I'm like look this is not going to generate interest with the next generation I mean you know they've got everything they could ever want in their phones now right and you remember like growing up where you know you'd have to watch it on WGN or whatever the case was right like I used to listen to Ron Sano and on the radio with Pat I can't think of his name now but we used to listen we used to listen to him on the radio in the car if we were on if we were at home we would watch WGN with Steve Stone and Harry Carey and if we were lucky we got to go to the game right yeah but oh I mean you can check your scores anytime anywhere anything and so I think it's just a different world but if I was playing I would hate it but now that I'm on this side I love the pace I enjoy it I think there's less wasted time less thinking more reaction and I think it's made the game a whole lot more fun to watch I'll say that and I think that is that is sort of the point that's what they were trying to do I so far I mean it's such a small sample size but stolen bases are way up to me it's the most exciting thing that can happen in baseball without a ball being put in play maybe we'll get the hit and run back just add like kind of inject athleticism back into the game not that there is there aren't great athletes playing but it used to be it's evolved into a game where everybody just had to slug home runs and now they're encouraging the the speed of of the game which I think is a beautiful part of it well the rule and there's probably going to be some changes to the rule I'm only throwing over twice so it's having the impact they want right but it's also changing the strategy for pitchers and you know and again I don't I really don't like that there's a restriction that pitchers can't throw over I understand in the spirit of trying to speed things along we don't like it I think the things you can remove are the the unnecessary mound visits I like getting rid of those things yeah I think you need to be more proactive with your bullpen I think that's a strategy thing for the managers and pitching coaches but you know those things need to go away the in between inning pitching changes multiple is just awful at them but restricting guys to only throw over twice and now you have like a get out of jail free card to start just running I don't I you know it's hard for me to get on board with that because like the days of Ricky Henderson Vince Coleman you know they're still in 100 bases because you know slide steps weren't really in practice yet so we had to you had to make adjustments and now the slide steps are everywhere but even if you have a slide step if I'm running before you basically have gone home you know good luck catching anybody oh yeah and they're not and I and I think they're using the rule to their advantage the pitchers really you can't hold the ball because if you hold the ball all of a sudden the 20 seconds is up and now now it's ball one or whatever it is so it really has the longer you wait the more the runners are just going to go and then if you've already thrown over twice you can throw over a third time but if you don't get the guy out it's a balk which I mean it that that is what it is but um I'm a I'm a fan of the stolen base and I think it like so far this year 84 success and the the analytics told us that if you weren't successful 80 of the time that you shouldn't do it and last year at bigly in the big leagues base stealers were successful about 73 percent of the time 74 percent of the time uh so hey I'm I'm in I'm all for the stolen base coming back I just I just think it's it's a good part of the game maybe it'll bring back more manufacturing runs and I will add this we have had just five sacrifice months across the entire league well you could just steal bases now you don't need to give up and out and statistically speaking out like that actually hurts you in the long run like there's there's a time and a place for it and I know that hurts you know some of the you know old school guys that really enjoy the game or people that really enjoy the game but you know bunting sack bunting statistically just doesn't make any sense stealing bases you know obviously if you're successful above 80 of the time is a success here's something I'd like to say to the fan base though that are listening to this one of the things that really irks me is how somehow people want to give credit to pudge rodriguez or yachty most recently don't run on yachty right it's it's thing ever adam i'll teach all of your listeners this you never steal off the catcher ever the big league catchers are too good you always see off the pitcher so if you're if you're a one five to the dish i'm safe i don't care if you have a bazooka back there you're not okay it just is what it is so you everyone needs to stop with the ol you're not allowed to run i mean you know i was one for one against yachty because randall shawate was like a one six to the dish it is what it is you know you're not going to catch anyone that's a base stealer if you're that slow to the plate so everybody needs to get over that and just turn the page on running on catchers because nobody runs on catchers you only steal off pitchers i would argue that toward the end you ran on mike piazza you could run on mike piazza that's bad he did he got paid to hit home runs and i think he did a good job framing pitches which i guess you're not you at i guess you'll you'll at some point not be allowed to do right because what we are going to have we don't have the automatic we don't have the automated strike zone yet in the big leagues just in the minor leagues so but at some point we'll have it in the big leagues and framing pitches will be uh a completely completely useful useless art uh do you think the no shift has had any bearable impact it seems like it has um i think the thing that they're doing now is they're just completely abandoning the left fielder for lefties and uh just shifting uh the other outfielder in as the uh rover whatever you want to call so that's been interesting but i think the biggest difference has been on righties because i remember us shifting you know to share and batista edwin as much as we did and taking away those singles from them and how upset they'd get when we stole from them so i mean it was it was a mental advantage that we were putting out there on guys and we really just just took away so many hits from those guys and really starts hurting their confidence so i think it's had an impact on that front not as much on lefties but probably more of an impact on righty so far and the truth is you can still shift you just can't shift as a you know as dramatically as they were doing it basically putting three infield putting the shortstop where the second baseman was playing the second baseman in shallow right field you looked like you were playing softball uh but you could when i was a kid growing up watching the game the shortstop would just basically be behind second base and you could do that now and play your second baseman as deep as you want i mean black and whites of them shifting ted williams back in fenway back in the day yeah you know it's not like it hadn't been done it just probably got overdone and i think they're trying to get things back to a little bit more action and if you know if you're on base that helps because now you could potentially steal second steal third the more action the more watchable it is the less people are looking at their phones the more they're watching your product you why why is elliot johnson anti-phone just bashing phones here well it's just it's it is but i mean you know you don't really get the opportunity so like up like i did i watched mark grace do everything like i can still remember him um using his his cleats to smooth out at wriggly field you know any divots from base runners you know take his glove off put it in his left hand smooth out any divots over and over over i mean you're not doing that now you know now you're going to your phone to go check out everything so it's it's just different so i i think i i don't like giving manfred any credit for anything of course i'm with you so far in these so far in the spirit of how he wants it done things are going pretty well all things considered all right final thing for elliot johnson if the Mets stink will owners decide that it's okay that he spends 300 million dollars a year on a team that isn't good no so it's it's they'll just make again it's it's worse if you win of course but they they don't like the fact that they aren't spending as much money to go out there to compete and i think it just makes them look bad i mean the pirates look worse and worse every single day yeah i i think overall they're still going to try to find ways to prevent this type of spending for a long time so they're going to have to get they're going to get more creative and they'll find other ways with the next cba you can guarantee it he told them he didn't care what why don't why didn't you listen to the man he goes i want to put him to steve cohen rule that's fine i don't care i mean he said he said it out loud that's fine uh whatever if uh if i think it'll make our team better uh then i'm happy to pay it and the other thing i think it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's uh if i think it'll make our team better uh then i'm happy to pay it and the other thing is that we saw the forbes list and all the teams in the top 10 that aren't trying to win top 10 of profits that aren't trying to win we see you so and i keep hearing from oh we need we need a salary cap we need a salary cap how about those teams take the 80 million dollars in profits and put them back into the team on the field the yankees are worth 7 billion plus i mean you could argue if they were going to sell it today it wouldn't be for seven it'd be more than ten i agree put it put it put it an auction go up yeah yeah it's not going to happen but i mean so i i it would be wonderful if they were a little bit more transparent with how how well they were doing they're all doing fine adam i can promise you that they just not to spend that's the problem they don't there's no incentive for those teams to win as long as they're turning a profit because it's a risk to try and win the reds have tried to win poorly but they have tried to win and failed so then all of a sudden well we tried it and well we can't do it so we don't so let's just not try and turn a profit we who cares about our fans the teams that are trying to win are caring about their fans but you see the the issue the underlying issue adam is the lack of pride okay so like cohen comes in he's like look you know i don't really care i want to win you know i i've got money in the front end to make sure that we can restock our our system and do whatever i've got to do to win sustainably i get it but you know when the red stock red stocks stink i mean that's come on guys i mean they they can compete if they want to tomorrow at not to so it's it's a little bit upsetting that they don't have more pride in what they're doing that they don't want to be competitive because they choose not to not because they can't but because they don't want to oh by the way the uh the Mets just signed Nolan Ryan to a uh to a two-year contract i'm sorry uh Elliot Johnson i appreciate your time my friend i'll talk to you soon pleasure as always