As you watch the Toronto Blue Jays scramble to make the American League playoffs (they lead the New York Yankees by 1 1/2 games for the second AL wild-card spot as this is written), it might be advisable to get some sleep before the postseason begins. Because the season of endless playoff games is about to begin.

For any number of reasons MLB postseason games that once clocked in at 2:30 are now Wagnerian operas that finally let their (AT and ET) audience stagger to bed at one or two in the morning. The average time for a postseason “classic” is over 3:30 with many playoff games— starting at 8:20 PM ET— trudging along for four hours.

As the saying goes, it didn’t always take this long to record 27 outs. In 1927 games lasted a punctual 1:47. But mission creep— and advertising— took over. By 2001 the average time of a Major League Baseball game was 2 hours and 54 minutes. It has not been below 2 hours and 50 minutes since the 2010 season— clocking in at just over three hours for the average game.

But you already know that if you were up late, deciding how little sleep you need to function properly the next day at work. The reasons are many for the stately pace of a game that— let’s face it— is still a nineteenth-century construct.

A principal reason has been the gradual expansion of the time between innings for advertising. From the start of the 2016 season, the breaks are: two minutes and five seconds for locally broadcast games and 2:25 for national televised games. For tiebreaker and postseason games it is 2:55. Previously, the between-innings break was 2:25 for locally broadcast games and 2:45 for nationally broadcast games.

Because advertising pays for $40 M/ year salaries, the players are largely cool with staying up late.

Last season, in a move to hustle things along, MLB took steps to reduce the number of mound visits and pitching changes. Relievers must face three batters; managers/ pitching coaches have a limited number of visits per inning and game. In 2015 they mandated batters (largely) staying in the batter’s box between pitches. (Although this is honoured more in the breach than in the observance.)

But strategic maneuvers have still inflated game times. Batters working counts and running up pitch counts for the opposing pitcher are endemic to the bloating of game times. (This, even as stolen-base tactics are reduced to numbers not seen since the 1950s.) Replay is the new drag on game times as umpires and unseen replay judges parse video for getting calls right (as they should).

So the game drags on, irrespective of our highly sensible request that MLB eliminate warmup pitches on the mound for relievers entering a game (they can throw all they want in the bullpen!) This would save up to 10 minutes in a game with four-plus pitching changes. Replacement NFL QBs don’t get to launch a few passes, NHL goalies don’t get a warm-up session. Why should relief pitchers?

But the Biggy for speeding up games could be a time clock between pitches. Whether 20 or 25 seconds, it would force pitchers to deliver to home (or pickoffs) upon pain of having balls assessed in the count. (Exceptions are allowed, but applied fairly clocks would take the stalling out of balling.)

Talked about for years, a time clock remains just over the horizon, probably due to objections from the powerful Players Association. As Jason Stark of The Athletic discovered, time clocks have immediate success when tried in the minors. “The average nine-inning game time in the Low-A West league is two hours and 44 minutes this year. In comparison, the average MLB nine-inning game this year takes three hours and nine minutes.

“Pitch clocks make a massive difference and could shave many minutes off of games if they are implemented. The data seems obvious. If you look at the difference between times of games for the various Class A leagues, the reduction in game times for 2021 Low-A West games is dramatic, especially when you compare it to Class A leagues without pitch clocks.”

Except. The longer pitch clocks are used, the less effective they are in shortening games. As Baseball America notes, “If you fast forward to 2021 and look around the minors, what you will find is that the time of game has grown dramatically since then. In 2014, the year before the pitch clock was adopted for half of the full-season minors, the average game time was two hours and 49 minutes. In 2015, that time was reduced to two hours and 42 minutes. Now? It’s three hours and one minute.”

Baseball isn’t alone in this laggard pace. All the televised sports take longer to play as they lard the games with lengthy video replay, entertainment spots (the U.S. Open had a Broadway show cast warbling on-court), strategy timeouts etc. We’ve seen the PGA Tour hustle players back into timed pace and tennis officials penalize players for not serving before their 25-second clock expires.

Baseball remains stubborn on using the clock. The question is, how to sell MLB stars that a ticking clock will not hurt their pre-pitch, in-between-pitch and after-pitch-rituals? Who’s going to tell Vlad Guerrero Jr. to pick up the pace or Max Scherzer to just release the damn ball? Not commissioner Rob Manfred, it seems. At least, not yet.

With nothing likely on the pitch clock till at least 2022, get set for some long ball games this autumn. With no disincentive for loitering, players will continue to act like taxi drivers— paid by the minute.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book with his son Evan is called InExact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx