WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — It took 2 hours, 19 minutes for the Miami Marlins to beat the Houston Astros 4-3 in a spring training game Monday — a game so fast that Ryan Murphy, a lifelong Houston fan, found himself lingering in the ballpark for a while after.

“I’m a baseball fan,” said Murphy, wearing 2022 Astros World Series gear, “so if I stay here for four hours, for two hours, it doesn’t matter to me.”

Faced with criticism of dwindling cultural relevance and a laggardly product compared to other major sports, Major League Baseball introduced a set of new rules this year to speed up games and attract younger fans.

The bases are bigger to improve player safety and may also encourage more aggressive baserunning. Pitchers can only disengage from the pitching rubber twice per plate appearance. And there’s a new pitch clock that gives players 30 seconds to resume play between batters. Between pitches, pitchers have 15 seconds with nobody on and 20 seconds if there is a baserunner.

Less than a week into the spring training exhibition schedule, MLB seems to be getting what it wants, shaving about 20 minutes off the average length of games compared to last spring.

Players have been mostly pleased with the rollout.

“The game feels more exciting,” Washington Nationals left-hander Patrick Corbin said. “Even some of the high-scoring games are under three hours.”

Fans seeing the new-look sport for the first time this week have had mixed reviews. Some, like Murphy, are indifferent to the changes.

“It’s irrelevant to us as fans, honestly,” said Murphy, who traveled from Utah to West Palm Beach for Houston’s exhibition season. “Players might think something different of it, but for us it’s all the same.

“How would I know the bases are bigger, honestly? I mean, we see a pitch clock out here, and we know it’s there, but it doesn’t matter to me.”

Some fans like the idea of being in and out of a game in under three hours, which is about how long an average nine-inning baseball game lasted in 2022.

Others feel a nostalgic pull to how the sport has always been.

“I’m not a big fan of the pitch (clock),” said Mark Mezzatesta, who traveled to Florida from Queens in New York. “I feel like that’s rushing the game. I feel it was fine the way it was. Pitchers do take a while. And batters do take a while, too. Fifteen seconds with nobody on base and 20 seconds with somebody on base is too short.”

Barbara Schiffman of Roseland, New Jersey, said she’s OK with some of the rules but “they should never let a game end on either the pitch clock or the batter clock.”

She was referring to a recent game between Atlanta and Boston that ended in a tie after Braves prospect Cal Conley was assessed an automatic strike for a pitch clock violation.

Conley originally thought he’d won the game with a two-out, bases-loaded walk but instead was given an at-bat-ending strike after the umpire said he wasn’t set in the box as the clock wound under 8 seconds.

“When you get to that point in the game,” Schiffman said, “you’ve got to let the game play out without the clock. That would be my only concern.”

She also had a complaint about new limits on pitcher disengagements from the rubber. Pitchers can only attempt to pick off a runner twice — if they try a third pickoff and are unsuccessful, the runner gets to advance a base.

“That doesn’t really work as far as keeping the runner from stealing, especially with the bigger base,” Schiffman said. “Those two things don’t really go together.”

Mary Theresa Fosko of Perkasie, Pennsylvania, said she liked the new rules but added, “The only tough thing is that the pitchers don’t get time to rest.”

That’s a trade-off that pitchers have grappled with early in the spring.

“The game does go quick, especially when they’re swinging a lot,” said Corbin, who started for Washington in Wednesday’s 5-3 loss to the Cardinals. “I’ve always worked kind of quick. I think it’d be a little bit tougher on guys that may be out of the ‘pen or guys that aren’t used to working that fast. But that’s why we have this in spring training and hopefully get used to it.”

Fosko’s brother, Frank, of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, said that even a 12-7 game between the Cardinals and New York Mets that he and Mary watched in Jupiter, Florida, moved along more quickly than the 2:59 game time might have suggested.

“The game went a good hour shorter than it probably would have,” Mary Fosko said, “That 15-second thing? That works for us.”

But she still wants to see more action.

“A few hits here and there is great,” she said. “But the walks just take forever. Everybody is swinging for the fences, and stuff like that.”

MEDIA: Major League Baseball added three executives to its new local media department as it prepares for a possible takeover of broadcasts for 17 teams amid the financial deterioration of the Bally and AT&T SportsNet regional sports networks.

Doug Johnson was hired as senior vice president and executive producer of local media, Greg Pennell as senior vice president of local media and Kendall Burgess as vice president of local media technical operations, the commissioner’s office said.

Diamond Sports Group, the subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group that operates networks under the name Bally Sports, has the rights to 14 major league teams and skipped about $140 million in interest payments due Feb. 15. Diamond said as of Sept. 30 it had debt of $8.674 billion. The company has nearly $1 billion in rights payments, mostly to baseball teams, due in the first quarter this year, and a bankruptcy filing is possible.

Diamond owns rights to the broadcasts for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, St. Louis Cardinals, San Diego Padres, Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s AT&T SportsNet networks told the Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros and Pittsburgh Pirates last week that the companies do not have the money to make scheduled rights fee payments. The networks told the teams they have until March 31 to reclaim their broadcast rights and if there are not deals, the networks would file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

PHILLIES: The stage hardly looked too big for pitcher Andrew Painter.

The hard-throwing prospect’s fastball touched 99 mph in his spring training debut against Minnesota on Wednesday. The 19-year-old allowed one run and three hits with a strikeout in two innings, a solid first step as he attempts to crack Philadelphia’s starting rotation before his 20th birthday on April 10.

The 6-foot-7 Painter showcased a little bit of why the Phillies are so high on him. The 13th overall pick in the 2021 amateur draft nearly reached 100 on the radar gun while facing Carlos Correa in the first inning, though Correa did reach on an infield single.

“You know, (Correa) is pretty good at what he does,” Painter joked with reporters afterward. “So just trying to get by him.”

Painter threw 18 of 29 pitches for strikes and fanned Max Kepler with a 90 mph cutter. He ran into a bit of trouble in the second inning after allowing consecutive singles to Christian Vázquez and Nick Gordon before giving up a run on a sacrifice fly. The game ended in a 4-4 tie.

YANKEES: Infielder DJ LeMahieu went 1 for 2 against Washington in his first game since being sidelined last September by a right toe injury.

He singled off the left-field wall in the third, and played four innings at second base. More importantly, LeMahieu enjoyed his pain-free at-bats since the middle of last season.

“I’m excited about that,” LeMahieu said. “Excited to keep it going. I’ve been feeling good, and I expected it to stay that way.”

LeMahieu was limited to 125 regular-season games and missed the playoffs. He finished the season with a .261 batting average, his lowest since 2011.

• Catcher Ben Rortvedt is out indefinitely after a procedure to deal with what Manager Aaron Boone called “an aneurysm of his posterior artery” near his left shoulder.

The injury is the latest in a series of setbacks for Rortvedt, who came to the Yankees as part of the trade that sent catcher Gary Sánchez to Minnesota. He was expected to compete for a roster spot but instead never appeared in a major-league game due to oblique and knee injuries.

NATIONALS: Outfielder Derek Hill left Wednesday’s game against the Yankees with a right leg injury.

Hill, signed to a minor league deal, beat out an infield single leading off the third inning but came up limping. He was replaced by James Wood, considered Washington’s top prospect.

The 27-year-old Hill, a first-round pick by Detroit in 2014, is attempting to resurrect his career with the rebuilding Nationals. Hill hit .240 in 95 games with the Tigers from 2020-22 before Detroit released him in the middle of last season. He was signed by Seattle and assigned to Triple-A Tacoma before being released in the fall.

ROYALS: The Kansas City Royals signed veteran Jackie Bradley Jr. to a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training, where he will have an opportunity to earn playing time in a wide-open outfield.

The Royals recently traded incumbent center fielder Michael A. Taylor to Minnesota for pitching prospects, and Drew Waters appeared first in line to take over the job. But he strained an oblique and is expected to miss the start of the season, leaving the Royals with an intriguing competition in spring training.

The 32-year-old Bradley will have to overcome Kyle Isbel, among other young prospects, to earn the starting job.

Bradley was an All-Star during eight seasons with Boston, where he was highly regarded for his defense but often failed to live up to expectations at the plate.

He signed a two-year, $24 million deal with Milwaukee two years ago, but hit just .163 and was sent back to Boston before being released and signing with Toronto.

He batted .203 with four homers and 38 RBI in 131 games between the Red Sox and Blue Jays last season.

If added to the Royals’ 40-man roster, Bradley would get a one-year contract for $950,000 and have the chance to earn $1 million in bonuses based on roster time.

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