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Samardzija wants MLB to eliminate extras, adopt ties

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If San Francisco Giants right-hander Jeff Samardzija had his way, Major League Baseball would do away with extra innings and instead allow games to end in a tie.

To make it palatable, Samardzija thinks the league should implement a point system similar to the Premier League, according to Kerry Crowley of the Mercury News.

"I don't think we need to play extra-inning games," Samardzija said. "We want to keep the game times down. End them in a tie, everyone gets one point like the Premier League. A win gets three points. Just end it at nine. We're playing 162 games. Over that course of games, you should be able to tell who the best team is. That makes the ninth inning exciting all the time.

"And really, who wants to go out there and play 15 innings? The relievers don't want it. The position players don't want it. The managers don't want it."

The Giants played in 21 extra-inning games in 2018, more than any other team, and went 11-10, according to Baseball Reference. The average team played beyond the ninth inning 14 times last season with 216 total contests going to extras.

While MLB is in the process of testing out new rule changes in the Atlantic League and is introducing alterations to the 2019 and 2020 seasons, the notion of allowing ties has not come up as an option.

Improving pace of play has long been part of commissioner Rob Manfred's mandate. In lieu of ending extra innings, Manfred has instituted a limitation on mound visits and has toyed with the idea of putting a runner on second base during extra innings to help expedite the end result, though that hasn't been adopted at the major-league level.

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