The new age thinking of baseball is slowly starting to ruin the once-great sport. The modern style of analytics that has been adopted by many baseball teams across the league has had a huge effect on the entertainment value of the game.

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made the decision to pull future hall-of-fame pitcher Clayton Kershaw in the seventh inning in the middle of a perfect game. 

With the MLB’s shortened off-season and spring training, Roberts was nervous about overworking Kershaw, which is understandable. It was completely the wrong decision. Kershaw had only thrown 80 pitches up to that point and gave no signs of slowing down. 

This was the second time this season that a pitcher was taken out of a game in the middle of a no-hit bid. 

Pitcher Sean Manaea of the San Diego Padres was also taken out of the seventh inning, while in the middle of a no-hitter back on April 8. Manaea was also taken out for fear of risking injury but in the same case as Kershaw, he was only at 88 pitches and did not want the injury risk. 

The old-school way of thinking would have allowed these guys to go out there and play. Perfect games and no-hitters used to be major achievements for teams to be proud of, but now it seems managers are afraid of letting their guys go the distance.

The days of starting pitchers going deep into a game seems like a thing of the past. Now teams don’t even call them starters anymore, they are considered “openers” who start the game pitching five to seven innings before they are pulled for a reliever.

Hopefully the MLB can find a way back to the days of starters like Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Kershaw going seven innings plus to finish the amazing games they pitch.