OK, truth be told, I caved on baseball.

When the 2020 season fell apart as a byproduct of the coronavirus pandemic and Major League Baseball desperately tried to cobble together some sort of faux campaign to replace it, I “opted out” in this very space.

And maybe it was the four months pretty much without any sports that softened me, but by the time the baseball season (re-)started, curiosity overcame me, particularly because some MLB “insiders” predicted a “zero percent” chance the 60-game schedule would be completed.

Yet, here we are, over halfway through the season, and with the notable exception of the Marlins and Cardinals who had Covid-19 outbreaks on their rosters, it appears all or most of the slates will be completed.

And I’ve been watching … a lot.

A cynic would correctly point out that my interest has been piqued by the fact that my team — the Dodgers — has the best record in baseball. But that’s not all. In my mind, the Astros can’t lose enough, for obvious reasons, though it’s disappointing that, sans fans, they’re not subjected to the jeering and booing they so rightfully deserve.

THEN, TOO, one new rule and two adopted for this abortive season have been interesting to assess.

The stipulation that a starting or relief pitcher must face a minimum of three batters clearly speeds up the game and was long overdue.

As a “National League guy” I’ve long resisted the addition of a designated hitter feeling that pitchers batting presented much more challenging strategic decision-making for managers. But mandating it for the NL in this two-month season hasn’t been a disaster.

Plus, it seems ludicrous that the two leagues differ on the DH. They both should be the same, one way or the other. To be sure, the role of designated hitter has extended the careers of once-productive American Leaguers in their declining years and, in a sport desperate for more offense (read: excitement) the DH undeniably adds that.

However, the other rule change, albeit temporary, is an emphatic no-go.

Starting each extra inning with a runner on second base can’t be part of a normal season. It wasn’t a great idea — albeit well-intended — for this non-traditional campaign, no matter how much wear-and-tear it supposedly saved on the players.

It’s fine for girls softball where games with two dominant pitchers could go on indefinitely. However, part of the appeal of MLB is the drama of long, extra-inning games and starting with a runner in scoring position is just too gimmicky.

SPEAKING of gimmicks, baseball has always been married to statistics, but methinks it’s being taken too far.

To be sure, television has educated us to the game.

How did we ever survive without the corner graphic that gives us the score, inning, number of outs, pitch count and velocity?

For years, we depended on the play-by-play man for that — often having to wait until the end of an inning — and rarely even got the last two. Now we know instantly.

And, who doesn’t love the immediate posting of a home run’s exact distance?

But we may be receiving information overload.

Now we get what announcers call “exit velo,” the velocity at which a ball leaves the bat. They sometimes refer to “spin rate” on pitches and last week I watched a game where there was a discussion, statistically, on the amount of horizontal break on a slider and the distance of drop on a curveball.

How much do we need to know?

I’m sure Bona baseball coach Larry Sudbrook loves sabermetrics … it’s integral to his job.

But sabermetrics — the application of statistical analysis to evaluate and compare the performance of individual players — makes the game more complicated and mysterious than I want it to be.

I’m fine with batting average, extra-base hits, RBI, runs scored, stolen bases, wins and losses, earned run average and strikeouts and walks.

Sabermetrics, created by baseball researcher Bill James and popularized by Athletics executive vice president Billy Beane in the book and movie Moneyball, have taken the game’s statistics to a dizzying level.

There are some 26 acronyms associated with Its conclusions.

Here are a few:

BABIP: Batting average on balls in play. The frequency of which a batter reaches base after putting the ball in play. For pitchers it’s a measure of the hitters they face.

Def Eff: Defensive efficiency, the rate at which balls put into play are converted into outs.

ERA+: Earned run average adjusted for the ballpark and the league average.

Fielding Runs Above Replacement: The difference between an average player and a replacement player determined by the number of plays that position is called on to make.

IR: Inherited runs, the number of runners inherited by a relief pitcher who scored.

OPS: On-base plus slugging measures a batter’s ability to get on base and hit for power … on-base percentage plus the slugging percentage.

QS: Quality start. A game in which a pitcher completes six innings, allowing no more than three runs.

WAR: The number of wins a player contributed above what a replacement level hitter, fielder, and pitcher would have done.

WHIP: Walks and hits allowed by the pitcher per inning.

But it’s still a game played by human beings with strengths, weaknesses and individuality which can’t necessarily be reduced to mere statistics.

(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)