In this Jay Jaffe rant about the extra-inning placement rule, he confirms something I thought might be true. The percentage of games going to extra innings is up.

Between the Yankees and Dodgers, 17.4% of their games have gone into extras and while I haven’t seen all of those games, I find myself paying less attention when they occur, not more; as I’m on the East Coast, an extra-innings Dodgers game usually means that it’s time for bed rather than another trip through the dregs of their bullpen. That 17.4% figure between the two teams is double last year’s rate of extra innings games (8.7%) and well ahead of this year’s overall mark of 10.7%, which in turn is higher than any season since 1965, when 11.1% of games needed extra innings.

FanGraphs.com

If low scoring is causing more extra-inning games, I would have expected 1968 to have been a banner season. Maybe it’s just greater parity. There are few really bad teams, and no outstanding teams so far this year.