I don’t care what the official explanation is for the 20-minute delay in the bottom of the sixth inning of Tuesday’s Twins-Dodgers game, and neither does anyone who watched the unbearable, interminable mess.
All that matters is that it was triggered by a double-switch (!) and it slowed down an already glacially paced game. If it was the night baseball died — and it very well could be — the only saving grace we can take from the experience is that it produced some very good tweets.
Paul Molitor has unlocked a secret code in the rule book that makes the game 15 innings long now. Never been done before. Sorting it out.
— Wifed Up (@TedMussels) July 26, 2017
I’m just hoping this leads to #BigSexy playing left field.
— Leland Steva (@lsteva3) July 26, 2017
Narrator: It did not.
I hope Dick and Jack get into an awkward argument to pass the time.
— Bob E. Buckets �� (@specialistbob) July 26, 2017
I’m not sure, but the Twins just drafted Kevin Williams.
— David Brauer (@dbrauer) July 26, 2017
That’s a 2003 NFL Draft callback from Brauer, which is the kind of obscure humor we crave at midnight on Twitter.
if Twins played with wrong lineup on the field the penalty should be they have to forfeit and everybody gets ice cream except Paul Molitor.
— Molly Knight (@molly_knight) July 26, 2017
No ice cream for Dave Roberts, either.
We know this: Eddie Rosario is out of the game. Ehire Adrianza takes his place in left field.
We’re not sure why.
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) July 26, 2017
EVEN THE TWINS WERE CONFUSED.
Tonight Molitor became president.
— Ben Collin (@bennyc50) July 26, 2017
Can’t wait for the @RandBall post one year from today with an oral history of this double switch.
— Jimmy (@dose17) July 26, 2017
Don’t tempt me, Jimmy.
is the game over
— Lana Berry (@Lana) July 26, 2017
No! That was the worst part. We still had three innings to go.
Only 30 Twins games of 98 (99 with tonight) this year have been played in less than 3 hours.
— Heather Rule (@hlrule) July 26, 2017
And that’s the real story here. Between Dodgers starter Kenta Maeda taking approximately 17 minutes between every pitch in the third inning — Manfred: get and enforce a pitch clock, like, yesterday — and a double-switch delay that even a golf fan would think was long and pointless, this was an extreme but relevant example of baseball’s biggest problem. The game moves too slowly and takes to long in a world where everything else is trending toward efficiency.

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