None of the arguments for a winning team holding back once it is comfortably ahead hold water. One is that no player should risk injury when the outcome of a game is settled, but managers typically send in the reserves when the game gets out of hand. Pitchers? It has now become routine for managers, sometimes on both sides, to let a non-pitcher position player take over the mound in routs. This has its own entertainment value, especially because the pitches from the amateur pitchers are usually high lobs or “eephus” pitches, and many batters can’t adjust to 40 mph throws when they are used to trying to hit fastballs that reach 100 mph or more. Watching a slugger screw himself into the ground swinging wildly at a pitch your sister might have thrown has its own joys.

I do object to MLB’s rule that the ABS challenge system is suspended in these situations. That rule just tempts umpires to call every pitch a strike based on the “Let’s just get this farce over with” theory. I also believe there is an argument to be made that some of the fake pitcher episodes risk making a “travesty of the game,” which would empower an umpire to put a stop to it. In last night’s game, the Brewers scored 9 runs in the 8th inning once the Mariners put a non-pitcher on the mound, and the game turned into batting practice.

There is also always the possibility that a team that seems hopelessly behind will catch up. After all, if one team can score 22 runs, there is no reason to assume the other team can’t. The biggest deficit any team ever came back from is 12 runs, but that doesn’t mean some team won’t score 13, or 14, or 22 to tie the score when hope seemed lost. Entering the bottom of the 9th against the Milwaukee Brewers, the 1901 Tigers were trailing 13–4 and managed a 10-run rally to win 14–13. If the those Brewers had been “phoning it in” assuming the game was in the bag, they might have considered a Jonestown-style mass suicide….except that was before Jonestown, wasn’t it…Never mind.

Unfortunately, I think the main reason the “don’t-run-up-the-score” ethic is dead is because of baseball’s capture by gambling interests, which is a separate ethics issue. Already, two pitchers have been caught, banned and are facing prosecution for intentionally not pitching their best to affect the score. Right now, ads during baseball games encourage fans to bet on everything from home runs to strikeouts over their cell phones in real time using odds that appear on the TV. If that’s the main impetus for letting teams score as many runs as they can, it will be another example of the right result flowing from unethical causes.