Silly Season

The Cubs just brought up their eleventh relief pitcher, which can only mean one thing—it’s September, MLB’s silly season when expanded rosters encourage all the worst tendencies in the national pastime.

A quick look at the box scores will confirm this.  The Mariners used five pitchers in a 10-2 rout of the A’s; the Angels needed six men on the mound to lose to the Rangers 7-6 on the road; and the Red Sox went with seven on the way to losing 9-2 in the Bronx.  When will the geniuses in the dugout learn that more bad is just more bad?

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wants to speed up the time of games.  In that case, he should start by keeping track of his September contests.  I’m willing to bet they average 3-plus hours easy.  One solution would be to limit the number of September call-ups to five.  Another would be to use all those extra players to take the game up a notch offensively.  I’m preaching, but nobody’s listening.