Japanese baseball trying to shorten games

In one of my first posts, I mentioned that the NPB (Japanese pro baseball league) was trying to shorten games as part of the Green Baseball Project. Recently, while checking the schedule on their English site, I noticed a small green box in the top left: Let's 省 time - the Chinese character means shrink or make smaller. Clicking on the Japanese page shows that the average game time (9 inning games only) is 3:05, while including all games, the average time is 3:12.

The project page (in Japanese) shows the average times over the past 20 years. If you and your computer could read Japanese, you would see the average time is getting shorter, from 3:19 two years ago. Still, the goal is under 3 hours for a 9-inning game, so they've a lot of work to do. Just yesterday, a 9-inning game between Chunichi and Yokohama that ended 2-0 with 14 combined hits took an unbelievable 3:14. I'll check this out in a couple of months to see if the warmer weather helps the game times.

Best,

Sean