This is not the day for a complaint about the pace of play in Major League Baseball. If you're going to take nearly four hours to play and watch a nine-inning game (final score: St. Louis 7, Twins 5), it might as well be on a gorgeous, summer-like day in mid-May at Target Field.
As a perk of the job, I wandered over for about 45 minutes over lunch hoping to catch two or so innings and gather enough material for a blog post.
I succeeded in the latter, at least. On the former, I arrived with one out in the top of the second inning at 12:41 p.m.. Twins starter Lance Lynn was already in full-on laboring mode, and he made an event of the rest of the inning while escaping eventually with just one run allowed.
Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas seemed like a better candidate for efficiency, since he entered the game with just three walks in seven starts, but he also labored with deep counts and long at-bats. By my count, he and Lynn combined to throw 116 pitches in the first two innings.
By 1:26 p.m., I had watched a little of the top of the third and there were still no outs. It was time to go back to work, and I had seen exactly five outs recorded — not even a full inning in 45 minutes.
Again, you're not hearing me complaining. Not a lot of people get to include a trip to the ballpark as part of their workday, especially on a day like Wednesday.
But I will say this: As far as Lance Lynn goes, it sure was nice weather at Target Field.
