The pitch clock is great and it’s trimming minutes off games. Okay, I got that out of the way. Even though today’s Cubs-Brewers game clocked in at 2:57, it felt like a slog to me.

I guess there’s no way to gussy up and poor pitching performance or two. Mark Leiter Jr. escaped the fifth inning without allowing a run, but his 30-pitch performance was brutal and not just because of his inefficiency. Two mound visits and one disengagement and I was dreaming of Steve Tracshel.

I made the mistake of turning to the first inning of ESPN’s Sunday night slogfest. If you want to pretend to pick up the pace of a game, get rid of sleeping David Cone. I enjoyed watching him pitch for the Yankees, Mets and Royals, but he brings zero energy to a boring, deliberate Martin Perez performance. They have to start timing some of these guys. Mark Buehrle would have thrown 3 innings during his first.

Karl Ravech just admitted Perez had been laboring and now the pace was picking up.