The height of baseball stupidity was that short window before the 3 batter / end of inning rule when everyone was using Spider Tack (2015-2019). Reliever strikeouts per nine rose from 7.87 in 2010 to 9.29 by 2019. I ended up sweating a ton of Giants games back then since they’d very often be the last game due to Bochy crawling to the mound seven times per game in the late innnings.
In the first 132 games with it, umpires assessed 259 violations – 73 automatic strikes for hitters who were not ready when the clock reached the 9-second mark and 186 automatic balls for pitchers who did not deliver pitches before the clock expired.
