So far, the batter box rules have successfully shortened the time of games:

Hat tip, BBTF.

Keep in mind this is a small sample size, obviously. But through Thursday, according to MLB’s in-house tracking, the average time duration of the first 43 nine-inning games was 2 hours, 51 minutes — more than 10 minutes shorter than a year ago at a similar point. Last season, through the first 42 nine-inning games, the average length was 3 hours, 4 minutes.

That’s a significant drop, and probably beyond what Manfred was hoping for with the new guidelines, which basically force players to keep one foot in the batter’s box and also tightly monitor the window between innings to keep it at 2:25 for locally televised games, 2:45 for national.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the commercial break restriction didn’t do more good. If half the inning breaks run 20 seconds over, that three minutes added to the game.