Braves and Red Sox game ends in absolute mayhem

The Braves and Red Sox are tied at six in the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, two outs, full count, and the game ends because the clock runs out. Wait, what?

Boston reliever Rob Kwiatkowski was ten pitches into a sticky spot. In the bottom of the ninth inning of a 6-6 game, Atlanta had men on all bases and Cal Conley at the plate with a full count. This would be the payoff delivery. As the pitcher and catcher agree on a pitch, the umpire calls time.

Thinking that the call was going the other way, Conley begins to trot up the baseline before turning back when he is told that the clock ran out on him and strike three was awarded. The game ended not with a bang but with a whimper.

“And now what?” said an incredulous Mike Monaco, who was announcing the game for NESN. “They have called strike three! Wow, this is mayhem! Oh! Automatic strike three called with bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth?!?!” Monaco’s broadcast partner Dave O’Brien could only laugh before Monaco sums the whole sorry episode up, saying, “This is baseball in 2023.”

It took less than two days for the pitch clock to do precisely the worst thing that it could do. Not content to simply watering down the quality of the pitches and hitting for nine innings, it moved on to actually ending a game in the most dramatic moment conceivable.

The only consolation, the only silver lining if you want to see it, is that this was only a Spring Training game. But you have to really want to see it.

Every kid who has ever toed the dirt in his back yard, gone into a stretch and then hurled a pitch against a shed wall has had the same vision. World Series, Yankee Stadium, bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded, full count. This was a spring game in North Port, Florida, granted, but all the other elements of childhood dreams are there.

There is a vocal minority of non-fans, and please let’s refer to them as that, who parrot on that this is somehow good for the game and that players will get used to it. But just for the record, if you think that this is anything other than catastrophic for baseball, then you are not a fan, you are not even part of the problem. You are the problem.

When Conley was called out, the umpires were seen to make sheepish excuses as the entire crowd at CoolToday Park erupted in a chorus of boos. This is not a popular move for the game, it is a travesty. Anyone who has ever played the game, devoted blood and sweat and years of their life to this game will be united in saying that this is terrible.

Of course there is room to speed the game up, but not like this. Not with a clock, no matter how long you give for a pitcher or batter to get set. There are dozens of ways that games can be sped up that don’t fundamentally change the game into something else. Any way you cut it, pitch clocks have to go.