Joe Maddon’s Solution To Shortening MLB Games: ‘Make Commercials Less Long’

The Rays beat the Jays last night after mounting an amazing come-back, down 5-0 late to eventually win, 7-5. You can read much more about that here and here.
But there was another story that emerged beyond the outcome: Joe Maddon going on a rampage after home plate ump Angel Hernandez refused to grant Carlos Pena time out in the 9th inning. Pena assumed time out had been granted, dropped his bat to his side and took a called third strike down the middle. The umpire in this situation did absolutely nothing wrong -- they do not have to grant time out. Especially considering Pena had just asked for, and received, time out the pitch previous.

So Maddon freaked out, screaming at Angel, then running down to crew chief Joe West at thirdbase and yelling, “This is your fault” at him before hitting the showers early.

After the game, Maddon discussed his thoughts on umpires attempting to speed up the game, something Hernandez was presumably doing by not granting time out to the batter:

That’s right: Maddon’s solution isn’t to install a pitch clock, or grant less timeouts, or call the strike zone as it is described in the rule book. His solution is for MLB’s sponsors to create shorter commercials.

Rob Iracane from Walkoff Walk shares his thoughts:

“Make commercials less long.”

Eloquent! And probably impossible. See, Joe, these “commercials” are “sponsored” by “companies” that want to pay MLB to “advertise” their “erectile dysfunction pills” which then goes to pay your salary! Sorta directly, actually! One could say Joe Maddon’s collection of fine Tuscan wines was built on boner juice dollars.

Instead, let’s put an end to the constant ballet of relief pitchers dancing about the mound and the endless adjustment of sluggers’ wristbands that eat up our precious minutes. Support Country Joe West in his mission to speed up games by abusing his umpiric powers! Reject Joe Maddon in his quixotic attempt to cut down the number of cell phone commercials during ballgames! Free markets now!

Obviously, Iracane is being irreverent for comedic effect here, but his point is well taken. Maddon is dead wrong here, and Hernandez’s refusal to allow the batter to further bring the game to a slow crawl is a stand we should all get behind.