NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball will have neutral clock operators in the first postseason of pitch timers.

MLB evaluated each team’s clock operators during the regular season and said Friday it will select up to a dozen of the best performers for postseason games, which start Oct. 3.

A clock operator cannot work a postseason game involving the team whose games the operator times during the regular season.

In addition, each postseason series will have the same clock operator for all games of that series.

The average time of a nine-inning game has been reduced to 2 hours, 40 minutes from 3:04 last year, on track to be the fastest since 1984.

MLB set the clock at 15 seconds with no runners on base and 20 seconds with runners.

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AP freelance writer Mark Didtler contributed to this report.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb