Rob Manfred is encouraged by pace-of-play changes that have limited mound visits and reduced the time between innings in games this season.

The commissioner believes the new rules have sped up games without any disruption. Mound visits without pitching changes averaged 3.79 per game through Sunday, down from 7.41 for last season.

"Whenever you change a rule in baseball, people predict all sorts of dire outcomes, and we have avoided even the smallest of incidents related either to the mound visit rule or the shorter inning breaks," Manfred said.

"Secondly, I'm positive about them because they've been effective. We are way down in terms of mound visits, I think down about 50 percent, and our inning breaks are significantly shorter. I take both of those as positives in an ongoing effort to make sure that we're producing an entertainment product with as little dead time as possible."

Under the new rules, inning breaks are 20 seconds shorter.