MESA, Arizona — I’ve written a lot on this site about the pace of play in Major League Baseball and the Commissioner’s office has made it an important part of their message.
The pace of the first two innings of the Cubs’ 5-4 loss to the Diamondbacks was awful. There were, combined: five hits, six walks, two errors and nine runs scored, and those two innings took 90 minutes. But then, the rest of the game flew by, seven innings in a hour and 57 minutes. At one point, 14 straight Cubs were retired, before the sub Cubs got a pair of runners on base in the ninth before Jacob Hannemann and Ryan Court struck out to end it (and a couple of the called strikes, frankly, weren’t, but I think plate umpire Rob Drake had had enough).