Tight Zone

The first two innings of today's Cardinals/Pirates game took one hour and six minutes to play. The final seven innings took two hours and sixteen minutes. Usually slow paced games occur because of poor pitching. The Pirates starting pitcher today filled that bill as he was terrible. He pitched, no threw, two innings. Just awful. Not so with the Redbirds starting pitcher. He pitched well but was continually squeezed by the home plate umpire. There was a very tight strike zone today and thus the length of the game. Call the strike zone the way it is written up in the rule book and the pace of the game will be at the speed Major League Baseball is looking for. The score today was 12 - 6 in favor of the Cardinals. There is no way this game should have taken 3:25 to play. Period.