Yet there’s something more. The game itself is changing, in a way the 33-year-old loathes. The decline of offense is a part of this, but in some respects, Napoli views that as a symptom of this time of discontent rather than a cause.

There are plenty of sources for Red Sox first baseman Mike Napoli’s frustration this year. His team sits in last place in the American League East. Despite recent improvement, his own early-season offensive struggles (a .214 average, .320 OBP, and .416 slugging mark – all at or near the worst numbers of his career) have played a considerable role in his team’s unexpected inability to score runs.


“I’m running into the dugout to get a drink of water and then running into the box while there’s a shot clock ticking down,” Napoli said, referencing the innings clock that requires the first pitch of an inning to be thrown no more than 2 minutes, 25 seconds after the conclusion of the previous frame.

“Our whole lives, we were taught to slow this game down. This game can get too fast for you. You have to be able to slow it down, relax, get a plan. You have to have a plan every pitch. You play a 162-game year. We’re going to rush through something we’ve got to do every day with a runner in scoring position? To me, this game is kind of going to a not-fun game anymore.”

MLB’s efforts to push down the gas pedal and to get hitters to shorten their pre-pitch routines represent part of a broader set of developments that have reduced offense to some of its lowest levels in decades. Though run-scoring is up slightly in 2015, from 4.07 runs per team game last year to 4.15 runs a contest this season, that’s still below any season’s average since 1992.


Napoli identified a number of contributing factors.

“My opinion, on lower runs scored and more of a boring game, I think the strike zone is bigger and pitching is better. That’s a double whammy right there. I’m not saying that’s why I’m hitting .200,” said Napoli. “[But] we’re trying to speed up the game, pace of play. How are you going to get pace of play up? More strikes, faster game. The strike zone is bigger. I know everyone can see it. The pitching is better. They’re throwing 90 mph sliders that are moving like crazy. When you talk about hitting in 1-0 rather than 0-1, when you’re getting called strikes, it’s a lot harder to hit. Everyone wants to say, ‘Oh, the hitting is worse.’ No. The pitching has gotten better, but there has to be a little leeway.

“Everyone wants the game quicker. Why? What is five minutes? Are you not going to come to a game because it’s five minutes longer? There’s going to be a fan that says, OK, I’m going to sit here for 2 hours and 55 minutes, I’m not going to come because it’s three hours?”

Napoli’s concern about the direction of Major League Baseball’s rules and officiating extends beyond the pace-of-play initiative and declining offense. The advent of replay, he believes, has replaced umpires’ best efforts that sometimes yielded honest mistakes and resulted in spirited – sometimes hilarious – argument with an intrusion upon the game.


“I think replay is terrible. There’s no human element. Umpires have no repercussions for anything they do. They make a call and, ‘You want to replay it? Go ahead.’ There’s no arguing in the game anymore. This game used to be the coolest game ever,” said Napoli. “(Managers getting thrown out in heated arguments) is what the game used to be about. That’s fun. Fans want to see that.

“For me, stopping five times a game for someone to put a headset on and look at a play . . . I think it all evens out (on umpiring calls). You’re going to get bad calls, you’re going to get good calls. But make people accountable for some of the calls they make, I think it would be better and they’d be more locked in.”

Still, while Napoli feels that replay detracts from the game, that is less significant in his professional life than the battle to maintain his approach. That battle, in turn, has transformed the strike zone into a source of considerable consternation.

The expansion of the bottom of the strike zone is well documented, to the point where it’s casually referenced by hitters, hitting coaches, pitchers, and, as this week revealed, team owners. Multiple clubhouse sources this year have suggested that they believe they’ve seen a zone that is also widening, with a more liberal interpretation of the outer edge.

The fact that Wednesday’s doubleheader between the Red Sox and Twins was played in a combined 4 hours, 48 minutes raised more than a few eyebrows around the two clubs, with descriptions of a very generous strike zone that players perceive with increasing frequency. Napoli, whose disciplined approach in many ways depends on the shape of the strike zone, has experienced bubbling, cumulative frustration that, in a season where he’s dissatisfied with his production, he’s occasionally had to vent, as when he was ejected from a game against the Rangers last Friday.


“I have a good feel for the strike zone and where it’s at. I think that’s where my frustration comes,” said Napoli. “Early in the game I get hosed on call somewhere here or there, and there’s a key guy in scoring position later in the game, there might be a close pitch and I think it’s outside because I looked at the video and saw where it was, and then I (complain) and moan and then I get thrown out of the game. It looks bad when, maybe there’s a borderline pitch and I get thrown out, but it’s a buildup. I think that’s where my frustrations come. I’m hitting .200, too. I want the borderline call. I want the borderline call to go my way one time. That frustration builds.”

Napoli recognizes that his frustration is contextual. If he were having a monster season, if his team was in first place, the disputed calls might be easier to accept. Still, even though he’s on a 17-game run in which he’s hitting .321 with a .424 OBP and .696 slugging mark with six home runs, the team’s struggles and his overall season have made it more difficult to ignore.


“When you’re going good, you really don’t worry about those things – ‘OK, I’ll give him that one, it was a little outside.’ But now, it’s, ‘I missed my pitch, and now it’s 0-2 instead of 1-1.’ That’s the frustrating part,” said Napoli. “People might say, ‘It’s one pitch,’ but that’s one pitch where he has to think about throwing me a heater rather than trying to screw around and make me chase something. He has a pitch to mess around on when he’s 0-1 or I’m 0-2 instead of 2-0 or 1-1. It’s tough. (But) it’s not an excuse.”

Perhaps not, but the changing nature of the game – its pace, its strike zone – is clearly something with which players are contending, with varying degrees of comfort.

Follow Alex Speier on Twitter at @alexspeier.