Now, let's be clear: Game 2 on Wednesday night is far more likely to last more than three hours than to come in under two-and-a-half. This game Tuesday night, it’s worth taking two hours and 28 minutes to savor it.Īnd Major League Baseball might want to take two hours and 28 minutes to try to replicate it. That’s the shortest World Series game in a generation, the shortest since 1992, when Tom Glavine threw a complete game for the Atlanta Braves but lost to the Toronto Blue Jays, 2-1, in Game 4. That’s not just a short World Series game in 2017, when nine-inning regular-season games averaged record-long three hours, five minutes. When Jansen induced a first-pitch swing from Astros second baseman Jose Altuve, and Altuve lofted a fly ball into the glove of Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig, the Dodgers had secured a 3-1 victory in a neat, tidy and extremely pleasing-to-consume two hours, 28 minutes. Tuesday night, Kenley Jansen was on the mound for the Los Angeles Dodgers, trying to close out the Houston Astros.īlink again. EST, to be settling in for another hour or more of baseball.Īnd yet, at 10:30 p.m. We know this because in last year's competitive, compelling World Series between the Cubs and Indians, the seven games averaged three hours, 42 minutes. We know this because, in this postseason, games had averaged more than 3½ hours. We know this because (according to the indispensable ) no postseason baseball game had taken less than 2½ hours to complete since 2011. How is that so? It’s late October, and the World Series started Tuesday night, and there was the couch and the television and a nice beverage.