Manfred unhappy with growing length of games

12:10 PM ET

The average time of a nine-inning baseball game is up nearly 7 minutes compared with this point last season, and MLB’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, isn’t happy about it.

“We think the single biggest thing we had going for us early in the year (last season) was player focus on the topic,” Manfred told ESPN. “And we feel like we’ve lost a little focus. So we’re doing a variety of things to try to get that focus back.”

Commissioner Rob Manfred is unhappy with the growing pace of MLB games this season and is focusing on measures to shorten games once again. AP Photo/Paul Sancya

Through Monday, the average time of a nine-inning game this season was 3 hours, 26 seconds. At the same stage of last season, about six weeks after MLB implemented much-ballyhooed new pace-of-game rules, the average game time was 2:53:33. That pace did slow, however, and the average time by season’s end wound up at 2:56:14.

Manfred said officials in the commissioner’s office have reached out to the Players Association to let the union know that they’re “concerned” about this trend. And players identified as repeated violators of pace-of-game rules have actually received personal phone calls reminding them to adhere to the rules, sources …

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