The Mets finally have a winning season — but fans have less time to enjoy it.
The Kings of Queens play the fastest games in the Major Leagues, averaging just two hours and 46 minutes for a nine-inning game this season.
That’s 15 minutes shorter than last year’s average, according to data from Major League Baseball, which credits the drop to new rules introduced to speed up games. Better pitching hasn’t hurt, either.
The Yankees, notorious for marathon innings, also have shorter contests, down eight minutes from last year to three hours on average.
The new MLB pace rules say hitters must keep a foot in the batter’s box between pitches, while timers measure nongame action and break times.
For example, players now have a countdown clock ensuring that only 15 seconds of a batter’s walk-up music is played and that a pitcher must throw his final warmup pitch when there are 30 seconds left on the clock.
Players can get fined $500 for deliberately delaying a game.
Average games across all teams dropped this year to two hours and 54 minutes, compared with three hours and two minutes in 2014.
The Tampa Bay Rays shaved nearly 21 minutes off their game time this year. Last year, they were the slowest — with games lasting three hours and 12 minutes — but now they’re done in an average of two hours and 51 minutes.
The Colorado Rockies hold the title of the slowest team of the 2015 season, with average games lasting three hours and four minutes.
“Even beyond the numbers, which are very positive, the overall pace of the game throughout the season has seemed crisper and more purposeful to many longtime baseball people and fans alike,” an MLB spokesman said.
