John Farrell has some ideas on how to speed up the game

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Only Nixon could go to China. Only Kirk could make peace with the Klingons. Only the Red Sox could cut down game times.

Well, maybe. At least Red Sox manager John Farrell has some ideas about that, including instituting a clock in between innings when pitchers are warming up and stuff. He shared that thought and some others with Mike Ferrin and Jim Duquette on MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM:

Those in between innings breaks matter, but as Farrell admits, pitchers — including his own Red Sox pitchers — pitch pretty slow. He talks about how to speed these guys up. We’ve not seen any results from this really, but what he has to say makes sense.

Dodgers place pitcher Noah Syndergaard on injured list with no timetable for return

dodgers syndergaard
Katie Stratman/USA TODAY Sports
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CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”