MINNEAPOLIS — With expanded replay making its debut in the major leagues this season, one of the byproducts, or so it seems, has been longer games.
The Minnesota Twins have been no different. On their current eight-game home stand, the Twins have played several games longer than three hours, a few longer than 3 1/2 hours and even one that lasted over five hours.
“I’m not for (long games). I hate long games,” Twins second baseman Brian Dozier said. “There’s obviously a lot of variables that play into it.”
Minnesota has been lucky this weekend against the Orioles. The series opener was their quickest game of the season, completed in 2 1/2 hours. On Saturday, it was just under three hours. Sunday’s game would have finished in two hours, 59 minutes — if not for an error on a routine fly-ball to right field that was dropped for an error. Instead, it finished in a tidy three hours, two minutes.
But in the series finale against the Los Angeles Dodgers, in the second game of a doubleheader, it took five hours, 11 minutes — the longest game in Target Field history. The game went 12 innings, but it took three hours, 58 minutes to play nine innings.
“That’s pretty miserable. Made for a long day,” Dozier said.
Twins pitcher Kevin Correia, who started the game Saturday against the Orioles, says he doesn’t think the replay process itself adds much to the time of game. Instead, it’s managers who go out several times per game and wait for the thumbs up or down on whether to challenge a play at all.
“They’re going to have figure out a way and a better system that having the manager go out there every close play of the game,” Correia said. “That takes too long and I think that will have to be addressed if you want to speed up the game.”
Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said with the way the game has evolved, it will be difficult to speed up games too much.
“Baseball is baseball,” he said. “Changing pitchers, walking out and talking to your team, a third-base coach giving signs, there’s just those moments.”
With bullpen specialists leading to mid-inning pitching changes, longer TV timeouts and field conditions all playing a role in the speed of the game, Dozier, Correia and Gardenhire all agreed the best way to play a timely game is by having two pitchers on the mound who get the ball over the plate.
“The main focus is pitchers pumping the strike zone,” Dozier said. “A couple of nights ago, you’ve got (Ricky) Nolasco and Ubaldo (Jimenez) throwing over 100 pitches and 75 percent of them are strikes. They were both working quick and that was a 2 1/2- hour game. That’s what it all boils down to.”