Rob Manfred Says MLB Unlikely to Keep 7-Inning Doubleheaders After 2021 Season

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MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said
Tuesday the league will likely return to traditional nine-inning
doubleheaders after the 2021 season.

“I don’t think seven-inning
doubleheaders are going to be part of our future going forward,” he
told reporters.

Manfred added the extra-innings rule
that automatically placed a runner on second base beginning with the
10th inning would probably be eliminated for 2022 and beyond, as
well.

The commissioner explained those two
rules fall under the umbrella of ideas created with the COVID-19 pandemic in mind,
and thus wouldn’t likely be necessary beginning next year.

Seven-inning doubleheaders helped
provide some relief following a large swath of rescheduled games amid
the pandemic, especially during last year’s 60-game season when
multiple clubs were forced to make up several contests in a short
period of time.

Having seven-inning and nine-inning
games count the same in the standings was a concern, however, and the
rules made it so certain achievements, like no-hitters this year by
the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Madison Bumgarner and a combined no-no by five Tampa Bay Rays
pitchers didn’t officially count since they didn’t
record at least 27 outs.

“I mean, I would have tried,”
Bumgarner said in April about whether he would’ve finished off the
no-hitter in a normal game. “I don’t know. There’s too many
variables. If it works for seven, it’s hard to imagine it not working
for two more.”

Meanwhile, FanGraphs’ Jay Jaffe noted
in May putting a runner on second accomplished its purpose, lessening
the average length of games and limiting the number of marathon
contests (12 or more innings), but teams’ performance in those games
was having a major impact on their overall record as they won or lost
through an “unearned baserunner.”

The rule also didn’t have the support
of fans, with 76.4 percent of respondents in a FanGraphs poll last November saying they were in favor of eliminating it after the 2020
season.

For now, it sounds like most MLB rules
will return to their pre-2020 norms beginning in 2022.