The now infamous "Hunt For Strikes" directive issued by Sandy (The Genial General) Alderson has caused the umpires union-ette to file the obligatory grievance, stating in part that, well, a 270-pitch average per game is arbitrary, capricious, baseless, materially changes the nature of baseball, and is essentially pantload logic.

To which we say, "And this represents a change in policy in what way?"

While we'd like to spend hours of time explaining why baseball uses up too many hours of time, you already know that, or at least suspect it. Time in this case, of course, being highly relative. Anything over 1:50 seems unreasonable for Devil Rays-Expos, while all day long seems needlessly short for Mariners-Yankees.

But what Alderson is trying to do, in his usual subtle way, is to get his umpires (and let's be honest here, they are his umpires now) to call the bigger strike zone thrust upon them in the offseason.

Some are. Some aren't. Consistency remains as it has been, which is far more of a problem, but we digress.

If the Brigadier wants 270, 270 he must have. Thus, we took the 60 umpires who worked the plate in the last four days and analyzed their work in the best way possible . . . from afar, having seen no games. That way, it would be equally unfair and stupid for all involved.

Anyway, we broke them down by total pitches and into four categories: "Where's The Fire?" "In The Ballpark," "You're Not Getting Paid By The Hour," and "What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate."

In "Fire," we found those who kept the pitch count under 260 --- anyone who worked the Kansas City-Pittsburgh series, plus Mike Everitt, Rob Drake, Rocky Roe, Lance Barksdale, Charlie Reliford, Laz Diaz, Mark Wegner, Jim Wolf, Phil Cuzzi, Gary Cederstrom, John Hirschbeck, Jerry Meals, John Shulock, Tim Timmons, Dale Scott and Wally Bell.

Then there are a bunch of guys in the middle that you don't care about.

A the troublesome back end, though, are men whose games ran over 290, guys who are simply are asking for it. Ed Montague, Brian O'Nora, Angel Hernandez, Matt Hollowell, Ron Kulpa, Bill Welke, Ed Rapuano, Kerwin Danley, C.B. Bucknor, Ted Barrett, Chris Guccione, Jim Reynolds, Dan Iassogna, Jeff Nelson, Fieldin Culbreth, Rick Reed, Marty Foster and Jeff Kellogg.

A few notes, though. Kellogg worked a 15-inning game in Oakland, which would reduce his 454 pitches to an almost perfect 272 pitcher over nine innings. Foster's 421 came in a 13-inning game between Cleveland and Cincinnati, reducing his actual average to a still unreasonable 291. Reed went 340 in an 11-inning game between San Francisco and Seattle, which is 278 in Sandy years.

Oh, and Fieldin and Kerwin are not suitable first names for umpires. Henceforth, Culbreth will be known as Augie, and Danley will be called Shag.

Of course, this analysis does not take into account the fact that more pitchers stink than 30 years ago, when there were only 24 teams. Nor does it take into account the fact that all these smaller stadiums cut down foul ground and outfield area, thus increasing unplayable fouls and home runs.

And it certainly ignores the fact that nearly every game is on television somewhere, which increases the amount of time between half-innings. But I'm pretty sure since baseball, like every other industry save loan sharking and extortion, worships at the altar of Mammon, we have to assume that they meant to ignore TV's influence on game times.

Still, rules are rules, and in the brave new world of umpiring, where a man's judgment is law until someone back at corporate tells him it isn't, 270 is the new rule of thumb . . . even for Florida's Antonio Alfonseca, who has six fingers on each hand.

Will this little bit of prodding produce the desired intent? Of course not. It will certainly inspire fans to yell a new subphyla of abuse at umpires, and it will give terminal wisenheimers like us a way to kill off another shard of the Internet.

But other than lowering the bar for pitchers who can't find the catcher's mitt, we find this to be another example of numbers replacing nuance in a game that thrives on the latter and is choked by the former.

But if it helps at all, it also shows that some umpires are educable. Dana DeMuth got the All-Star Game in with a sprightly 258, and if it hadn't been for that silly show-and-tell in the middle of the game he might have gotten it in under 250. Good work, Dana.

The actuarial tables say so, too.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com