Position player Garrett Jones pitched for the Yankees, maintained 0.00 career ERA

Major League Baseball has officially cut down on the average elapsed time it takes to complete a game, thanks in part to some pace-of-play measures that have been put in place for the 2015 season.

But America's pastime is still boundless, refusing to adhere to the confines of a clock. This means that some games can take a while, be they back-and-forth extra-inning affairs or lopsided contests that got out of hand early. Regardless of how the game came to take forever, baseball's marathons share a common silver lining: POSITION PLAYERS PITCHING!

It's like that high school football scrimmage when the coach lets the lineman play running back for a series, except, you know, this one counts in the MLB standings. On Saturday, the Rangers hung a 10-spot on the Yankees in the third, which meant that Joe Girardi was trying to conserve his bullpen by the time the ninth inning rolled around. Thus, he called on first baseman/right fielder Garrett Jones. 

Jones immediately began to put on a show, sailing one of his warmup pitches to the backstop:

Don't worry, he can explain: "I was just not used to throwing off that mountain of a mound," Jones told MLB.com's Bryan Hoch. "A little different coming down. My arm was really dragging and I was just trying to get on top and find my release point."

Further crisis was averted, though, as Jones induced a groundout to first and a fly ball to get out of the inning, utilizing a nasty curveball against Shin-Soo Choo that he'd been saving for just such an occasion.

"That was pretty nasty," he said. "That felt like a good pitch. Surprised he hit it. I shoulda thrown more of those."

Despite a sparkling career ERA of 0.00, Jones thinks he'll stick to his day job.

"I was a little scared and nervous, tried to throw it over the plate and tried not to get a line drive hit right back at me. I was just trying to put it over the plate and hoped they'd put it in play and get some outs. Just glad I could save some bullets for the real pitchers." 

BRING HIM HIS CY YOUNG AWARD!