Baseball Suicide

The NT Times Sports Page managed to pull its attention away from the riveting spectacle that penalty kick shootouts are to give us a very interesting note about the game we all love the most today.

The Times reported on a Twins-Brewers game last Tuesday—I know, I know, that's enough to get you nodding right there!  But please try to stay awake for two more minutes!—in which the Twins first baseman (yes, still Joe Mauer, the guy who stole Jeter's 2006 MVP award) did not record a putout or an assist.

The reason?

Because the Brewers struck out 16 times, and made 8 more outs on flyballs and line outs.  Oh, and as that total implies, won the game, 2-0.  The Twins struck out 13 times themselves, and recorded 2 hits, including 1 double.  Milwaukee had 4 hits, but one was a two-run homer so, end of story.

(Though of course the game still managed to last almost 3 hours.)

So who was pitching, Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax?

Not quite.  The starters were longtime Minnesota tomato can Jake Odorizzi, with his 43-44 lifetime won-loss record, and 33-year-old Junior Guerra, who is having a decent season this year, but who has all of 15 wins in his major-league career.

Of course, despite all their success, both Odorizzi and Guerra went 5 innings each, before the teams brought in 2 more relievers apiece.

Folks, this sort of thing is just killing baseball.

As the Times reported, it's far from rare.  Through Wednesday, major-league hitters had recorded a grand total of 21,641 hits on the season—and struck out 21.983 times.

If this pattern holds, 2018 will be the first season in which the number of strikeouts exceeds that of hits.  Ever.

And people wonder why attendance is down?

I don't care what the algorithms say.  If the future of baseball is one in which all the beautiful nuances of the game are erased, in contests that nonetheless go on deep into the night—one-dimensional, home-run derby contests against a faceless array of middle relievers—well then we are doomed.

Nobody is going to go on watching that, not even us.

The New Baseball is supposed to be statistically improved to give batters the maximum opportunity to score runs.  I say politely, in a pig's eye.  A 2-0 result against a couple of mediocrities isn't the maximum anything, but a prescription for amnesia.

I'm not sure how they can or should do it, but baseball needs to bring back the game we all loved, before it has lost every last fan to video games and bourbon.

(Not that there's anything wrong with bourbon.)