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NEW YORK – Doubles in seven innings and runners on second base to start extra innings will return for a second consecutive season under a 2021 health protocols deal reached Monday between Major League Baseball and the players’ association .
The deal did not include last year’s experimental rule to extend the designated hitter to the National League or expand the playoffs. After allowing 16 teams in the playoffs last year instead of 10, MLB offered 14 for this year before withdrawing that plan last month.
Last year’s expanded playoff deal was only reached hours before the first start of the season.
There were 78 more games last year and the longest per innings was two 13-innings in Houston, won by the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 29 and Oakland on August 7. Every previous season since 1901 has had at least one game. of 15 or more innings.
There have been 45 games postponed for reasons related to COVID-19 and only two were not invented, between Saint-Louis and Detroit. To do so, there were 56 doubles in the lead, the most since 76 in 1984. About 12% of games were in doubles, the highest percentage since 13.6 in 1978.
The deal includes more sophisticated contact tracing for COVID-19 that includes the use of technology, and more league rules on behavior to comply with new coronavirus protocols.
Spring training begins February 17th and the season begins April 1st. The union last week rejected the MLB’s proposal to postpone spring training and opening day to April 28, a plan that would have led to a compressed schedule of 154 tag team games instead of the usual 162.
The start of last season was delayed from March 26 to July 23 due to the pandemic, and each team’s schedule has been reduced to 60 games.
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