Tell that to the fans in Detroit on Tuesday.

The Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays played for 5 hours, 3 minutes before Detroit finally won 8-7 in 13 innings. The extra frames made the game take longer, but what really made it tedious was the ceaseless substituting by both teams, especially on the mound. The Tigers used 10 pitchers while the Rays used six.

Tampa Bay used 17 position players, including three designated hitters and three catchers. Detroit used three third basemen.

”Every time one manager makes a move, the other manager probably has two or three choices,” Detroit skipper Brad Ausmus said. ”That’s what happens when you expand rosters.”

Indeed, the expanded rosters in September give managers a chance to look for platoon advantages throughout the late innings – they hardly have to worry about running out of pitchers.

Last Monday, the Dodgers and Angels played a nine-inning game that felt like rush hour on the freeway with all of its stopping and starting. The Angels used nine pitchers, including eight in the final 4 2/3 innings. The Dodgers used seven pitchers, including six in the last three innings.

The Dodgers won 7-5 in 3:52.

”September baseball…when there are too many people available to play and timely games go to die,” said a message on the Twitter account of Dodgers pitcher Brett Anderson.

The average nine-inning game this month has taken 3:03, compared to 2:55 before September, according to STATS. The average nine-inning game last September was 3:02.

Here are a few other developments from around baseball:

A LEAGUE OF HIS OWN?: Yoenis Cespedes is beginning to get some support in the National League MVP race, which is odd considering he played more than half the season in the AL. Cespedes has hit .308 with 16 home runs since being traded from Detroit to the New York Mets at the deadline. His full-season stats – .297 with 34 homers and 102 RBIs – are certainly impressive, but does the fact that he’s split time between the two leagues mean he can’t win either MVP?

Washington’s Bryce Harper has spent the whole year in the NL and has an OPS of 1.111, the best in baseball. Even if you look only at the time frame from Aug. 1 on – when Cespedes began playing for the Mets – Harper still has the New York outfielder beat with an OPS of 1.048 to 1.033.

On some level, it’s fair to wonder if – after nearly two decades of interleague play – baseball needs to keep giving separate awards for the AL and NL, although the fact that one league uses the DH and the other doesn’t makes it harder to compare stats between them.

A quarter-century ago, a league switch affected one major honor. When Willie McGee was traded from St. Louis to Oakland in late August, his .335 average was frozen in the NL batting race. He ended up finishing first, becoming the first player to win a batting title in a league in which he didn’t finish the season.

FANTASY FOCUS

Logan Verrett gets the start Monday night as the Mets try to limit Matt Harvey’s innings. It’s a good spot for Verrett – at home against Miami – and at this time of year, the short term is all there is to worry about in non-keeper leagues. So looking day by day for good matchups isn’t a bad idea.

In that same vein, Oakland’s Jesse Chavez is slated to start Wednesday against the Chicago White Sox, who are near the bottom of the majors in runs.

LINE OF THE WEEK

Madison Bumgarner, Giants, struck out nine in a one-hit shutout Saturday as San Francisco beat San Diego 8-0. The Giants are unlikely to make the playoffs, but Bumgarner (18-7) has a chance to win 20 games for the first time.

The post More players, more pitching changes, longer games appeared first on IdealCapper.

Tigers general manager Al Avila released a statement Friday amid reports that the team had already decided to fire Ausmus after what has turned into a lackluster season.

“I reconfirmed with (owner) Mr. (Mike) Ilitch and manager Brad Ausmus this morning that these evaluations are on-going and decisions in any of these areas will be made by the end of the season,” Avila said as the Tigers prepared for a game in Cleveland.

Ausmus is in his second season in Detroit’s dugout and this year has not gone well by any measure. The four-time AL Central champions have sunk to last place in the division after an 11-2 start and only Oakland has a lower winning percentage in the league.

After replacing the retired Jim Leyland, Ausmus guided Detroit to a fourth straight division title in 2014. The Tigers, though, were swept in the division series by Baltimore, and they have been perhaps the most disappointing team in the majors.

Detroit fell so short of expectations that it traded stars David Price and Yoenis Cespedes before the non-waiver trade deadline. Almost immediately after that, general manager Dave Dombrowski was let go and Avila was promoted to replace him.

Ausmus had little managerial experience when he took over for Leyland, and during the first few weeks of his tenure, the former major league catcher looked like exactly the type of younger, fresher voice who could help the Tigers keep their run going. Detroit started 27-12 in 2014, but that turned into an up-and-down season in which the star-laden Tigers led by Miguel Cabrera didn’t wrap up the division until the final day of the regular season.

After this year’s strong start, the Tigers eventually fell well behind first-place Kansas City and Ausmus was repeatedly unable to navigate the late innings with a much-maligned bullpen.

Detroit’s core of Cabrera, Justin Verlander and Victor Martinez has shown more signs of age lately, with all three having dealt with injuries this year. The pitching staff — both the rotation and bullpen — may need a major overhaul if the Tigers are to contend again in 2016.

Ilitch has poured plenty of money into this team, trying to win Detroit’s first World Series since 1984, but keeping the Tigers’ window of opportunity alive has become increasingly difficult.

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