Major League Baseball

MLB must operate on Mark Buehrle speed

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 6:08 p.m. ET

foxsports

With games now averaging over three hours and approaching NFL Sundays in length, Major League Baseball is intent on quickening the pace. In 2015, managers can't squabble with umps on the field during replay challenges, hitters must keep one foot in the batter's box, and everybody better be ready to play ball after TV breaks and pitching changes. More radical solutions -- like a pitch clock that was piloted in the Arizona Fall League and will be implemented in the upper minors this season -- could be in the offing. But all of these pace-of-play initiatives would be unnecessary if every pitcher simply asked himself, "What would Mark Buehrle do?"

While the veteran lefty's pitches take a while to reach home plate, Buehrle is a one-man game accelerator. In an era where starters pace on the mound, throw max-effort for five or six innings and give way to a slew of relief specialists, Buehrle chucks pitches into the late frames while barely affording enough time to fire off a Tweet in between. He's a throwback to the sort of pitcher more commonly seen during the days of radio and grainy TV, yet he's precisely the kind of fast worker MLB needs to capture the fans' ever-shortening attention spans.