Good Grief, Manfred... Can we make it any more obvious, barring some on-field "Vitamin S"?

These playoffs are getting fucking ridiculous.

It's the end of the 7th in Game 3 of the Boston NLDS as I begin this blog post, and that one looks like it's going to a Game 4 tomorrow.

It's 10-3 Boston.

Not even taking into account that there are two innings to go in this game, there's one thing that people can look at without any question.

The scoreboards are going abject TILT!

As of that 10-3:  In only 9 playoff games and the two play-in/Wild Card games, there have now been 33 runs in the Boston-Houston series (2-0 Houston, Boston up 10-3 in the third game), 21 runs in the Yankee-Cleveland series (2-0 Cleveland, Game 3 tonight in New York), 27 runs in the Dodger-Diamondback series (2-0 Los Angeles, Game 3 tomorrow night in Arizona), and 12 runs in the two games of the Cubs-Nationals series (1-1, Game 3 tomorrow afternoon in Chicago).  And the Wild Card/play-ins were 11-8 (Arizona over Colorado) and 8-4 (New York over Minnesota).

11 games, 124 runs.

An average of over 11 runs a game.

And I've watched two games with a very nervous baseball fan friend of mine, and we're just shocked to see how much the ball is jumping off the bat in every conceivable fashion.  An 8-2 lead, in three pitches, can become 8-5 and a far more nervous game in very VERY short order, and that's how Commissioner Blinded by the Light wants it -- MORE offense!  MOAR!!!

Well, that leads to several problems:

First:

Yankees-Twins:  3 hours, 51 minutes
Diamondbacks-Rockies:  3:54
Houston-Boston:  Game 1:  3:26  Game 2:  Four hours even  Game 3 (which just ended at that 10-3): 3:38
Cleveland-New York:   Game 1:  Also 3:26  Game 2 (the only extra-inning game so far):  FIVE HOURS EIGHT MINUTES
Washington-Cubs:  Game 1:  3:02 (for a game that ended 3-0 with only three pitchers for each team and a total of seven hits!!!)  Game 2:  3:06
Dodgers-Diamondbacks:  Game 1:  3:37 Game 2:  3:48

The average game (with only the one extra-inning game) is about three hours and 43 minutes long.  With a number of these games starting a 9 PM Eastern, this would mean the "late game" would end somewhere about 12:45 AM the next morning -- not conducive at all for the kids.

Second:

Does a wonder for people's nerves when it just seems that any pitcher can conceivably get shelled at any conceivable moment!

This, after a season in which both the records for most home runs across MLB and most strikeouts were broken.  The only reason people won't make a claim the Steroid Era is back is because nobody got THAT ridiculous in distance of home runs OR in production.

The balls are juiced, and it's creating a situation where the games are high-scoring, intense, and very hard for some people to take, frankly!  Some baseball historians would much rather see pitching be of value, but the way this playoff situation is going, Commissioner Manfred would rather see the ball put on a tee for the Cubs (who are the only team, thanks to the scourge of WGN and "Cub-bro" who wants to shove the "W" flag up Washington's asses in their own ballpark (which did happen after Game 1!!), to get good ratings, it seems) to drive off of.