{"id":863795,"date":"2026-09-28T18:14:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T18:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/863795\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T18:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T18:14:41","slug":"mlb-average-game-time-up-nearly-4-minutes-to-242-partly-because-of-robot-umpires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/863795\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB average game time up nearly 4 minutes to 2:42, partly because of robot umpires"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"FILE – A call is overturned to a walk by the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System, displayed on the stadium screens, after Cincinnati Reds’ Will Benson challenged at pitch result during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox in Cincinnati, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo\/Carolyn Kaster, File) (Carolyn Kaster, Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)<\/p>\n

NEW YORK \u2013 The average time of a nine-inning Major League Baseball game increased by 3 minutes, 43 seconds this season to 2 hours, 42 minutes following the introduction of robot umpires<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MLB said Monday that 61 seconds of this year’s increase was attributed to the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System, which allows batters, catchers and pitchers to appeal umpire ball\/strike decisions to a computer.<\/p>\n

MLB\u2019s average fell from 3:04 in 2022 to 2:40 the following year when the pitch clock was instituted<\/a> and decreased to 2:36 in 2024<\/a>, its lowest since 1984\u2019s 2:35. It rose to 2:38 last year.<\/p>\n

The average game time passed three hours for the first time in 2016. It reached a record 3:10 in 2021<\/a> before the introduction of the PitchCom electronic pitch-calling device<\/a> helped bring it down to 3:04 in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

\nSee AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – A call is overturned to a walk by the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System, displayed on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":863796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-863795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}