Phillies pitcher blasts MLB for beer sales amid new pitch clock rules

With the new pitch clock that is being used this season, baseball games are starting to move faster which is causing concern for concessions and beer sales. Phillies pitcher Matt Strahm doesn’t care.

With the new pitch clock rule, it has been discovered in the first week that baseball games have been on average, 31 minutes shorter. With the shorter games, the MLB is decided to extend beer sales thru the end of the 8th inning instead of the 7th inning. There is a player that does not agree with this move.

Phillies pitcher Matt Strahm made sure to make his voice heard about this change. While doing an interview on the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast Strahm made the comment,

"“The reason we stop in the seventh before was to give out fans time to sober up and drive home safe, correct? So now with a faster-pace game and me just being a man of common sense. If the game is going to finish quicker, would we not move the beer sales back to the sixth inning to give our fans time to sober up and drive home?"

Phillies: Matt Strahm finds new beer sales rules silly

The Diamondbacks, Rangers, Twins, and Brewers are the only teams right now that have moved their beer sales to the eighth inning to make up for the faster-paced game and money that they could be losing. The Orioles had already allowed sales into the eighth inning before the talk of moving beer sales. Most teams in the MLB are still stopping the beer sales at the end of the 7th inning even with the change of the rules.

The Brewers’ president of business operations Rick Schlesinger made the comment to MLB.com:

"“This is reflective of the fact that the games are shorter. From a time perspective, we’re probably looking at selling beer for the same amount of time by extending to the eighth inning that we did last year through the seventh.”"

MLB does not regulate when the teams will stop selling alcohol, but a lot of teams do use the seventh inning as a cut-off to not over-serve customers.

Does it make sense to move the beer sales?

Some baseball fans believe that this is a great move for the MLB so that they can be able to enjoy the game longer. There are other fans that think the same way that Strahm thinks, that there should be safety concerns to this. Yankees reliever Michael King has stated on this topic saying “There’s a responsibility on everybody regardless if you’re getting served in the seventh or the eighth inning.”

Strahm still wants the MLB to use common sense when it comes to beer sales. “But just using common sense: We stopped it in the seventh for the safety of fans and people getting home. Like, it just makes no sense to me that you’re going to allow it to the eighth inning.