LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Major League Baseball’s 2020 season promises to look a lot different, and Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Justin Turner has an idea to keep games short in a campaign compressed by coronavirus.
Opening Day, originally scheduled for March 26, now won’t come before mid-May.
Even if teams won’t play a full 162-game schedule, it seems likely that whatever program is eventually put in place will be jam-packed with back-to-back games and double-headers.
Turner suggested that to avoid marathon games MLB should institute a home run derby to decide any contest tied after 10 innings.
“Instead of playing 17 innings, you get one extra inning, you play the 10th inning, and (if) no one scores, then you go to a home run derby,” Turner said. “You take each team’s three best hitters and you give them all five outs and see who hits the most homers.”
Turner first floated the idea in a TV interview on Wednesday, and elaborated on Twitter on Thursday.
He said it could protect pitching staffs, with his plan calling for pitching coaches to throw during the derby decider.
He noted that even if teams are allowed to carry extra pitchers on their rosters this season, the starters won’t be fit enough to go deep into games early in the campaign.
That means bullpen pitchers will be called on, and relievers who might have once been counted on to put in long innings “are now your sixth and possibly seventh starter.
“Oh and by the way you might have a double header scheduled in the next day or two or what if this is the first game of the double header? That’s why a 15-inning game for THIS SEASON is not ideal.
“Nobody wants to see a tie,” Turner wrote on Twitter. “A quick 1 round, 6 man derby (3 a side), 5 outs or 10 swings each (keep it safe for the hitters too) and you have your winner!
Turner emphasized that he was suggesting the change — similar to a penalty shootout used in ice hockey and football — for 2020 only.
Turner has first-hand experience of how ultra-long games can deplete a team.
The Dodgers beat the Red Sox 3-2 in the longest post-season game in history: a 7-hour, 20-minute, 18-inning marathon in game three of the 2018 World Series.
