Time for a balanced schedule

The way that the major league schedule is set up is absolutely appalling. Let's just look at the state of the American League for a moment. Over in the AL West, the A's, Angels, Rangers, and even Mariners will benefit from the arrival of the Astros in their division - they can beat up on Houston nineteen times this year.

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, the AL East is pretty much up in the air. Toronto had a HUGE offseason, Baltimore is coming off of a playoff appearance, and those two are the usual basement dwellers. The Blues Jays, Orioles, Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays will play each other for almost half of their seasons - think about how that changes things in terms of Wild Card chances.

Now that each league has fifteen teams, and large blocks of interleague play are over (in favor of spreading those games from beginning to end), it's time to demand a balanced schedule. We've all pretty much accepted that the playoffs are essentially a crapshoot; any team can get hot at the right time, and ride that all the way to the World Series. But getting to the playoffs (yes, even with the new expansion) take quality play all season long.

But when the Rangers get to play the Astros nineteen times, and the Red Sox only play them seven times, how can we pretend that their records can be fairly compared? It's obvious to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention that a balanced schedule needs to be next - at least within each league.

The end of interleague as we know it?

Baseball is a strange sport. In most sports, your goal is to take the ball (or puck), and carry it past the defenders, across the court/ice/field to score. In baseball you're still trying to get the ball past the defenders, but scoring runs with your body - back in the exact place you started. Major League Baseball is pretty strange even among other major professional sports, in that it's actually comprised of two leagues, with significantly different rules.

 Obviously, I'm talking about the designated hitter rule: the National League has the pitcher hit, and the American League sits the pitcher down and gets an extra offensive player in the lineup.  Because interleague games are played with home field rules, the American League pitchers typically get drilled in the finer points of hitting (mostly sacrifice bunts and how not to get injured swinging the bat and running to first) in the weeks before interleague play starts.

But due to the Astros shift from the NL to the AL, interleague play will no longer be limited to two stints before the All-Star Game. No, now that there are six divisions of five teams, scheduling will require one interleague contest each day, meaning that AL pitchers must be prepared to hit about once a month all season.

For instance, the Red Sox pitchers will have their first taste of batting in interleague at the end of April, with a two-game series in Philadelphia, then they'll head to San Francisco for a three-game set against the defending champs and to LA to play three against the Dodgers in late August. The last chance for Red Sox pitchers to make their case for the Silver Slugger award will come in the second-to-last series of the season, two games in Colorado at the end of September.

All in all, the Red Sox will have to do without the DH for just ten games - but at random intervals. Joel Sherman of the New York Post thinks that the overhaul in scheduling is bound to lead to more pitcher injuries, and eventually the end of pitchers hitting in any league. The players union would be much more likely to accept an expansion of the DH role, because it allows aging sluggers to prolong their career.

Personally, I think it will be a sad day indeed when some pitcher steps up to the plate for the last time. I understand the practicality of phasing out the rule disparities between the two leagues in this manner, but at its heart baseball is a game of nostalgia. Every rule change meets resistance (ranging in severity from the horrible threats faced by the great Jackie Robinson to the minor chorus of whining about last year's playoff expansion), but over time most fans come to realize that change can be good - while still reminiscing about the good old days.

Interleague Hope?

Once again the Red Sox are on the precipice of being back where they were on Opening Day: back at .500. After a masterful performance from Jon Lester last night, albeit with a 3-run homerun hiccup, the Red Sox held on for the win and brought their dismal record to 32-33.  With one more game against the Cubs, then three more against the struggling Marlins, and finally a three-game set against the second-place Braves, the Red Sox have a chance to wrap up interleague play above .500.

The Sox were supposed to have Josh Beckett pitching for them tonight in the third and final game against the Cubs, but he's been placed on the disabled list with right shoulder inflammation.  When reporters asked Beckett for comments about his situation, he refused, telling them he would talk about it on Tuesday.

Now, I could get into how flipping annoying it is that Beckett can't be bothered to address the media, but that's old news, and we've discussed it in this space more than once.  Instead, we'll do a short preview of Beckett's fill-in, Franklin Morales.

Morales hasn't started a game in more than three years, but he has had some rather long relief outings lately.  So far this season, Morales has pitched 23.2 innings, and has a very respectable 3.04 ERA. In the year since Morales came to Boston from the Rockies, he's had some success, and he seems to be excited for the opportunity to start.

Clay Buchholz, on the other hand, was asked about the possibility of him starting this evening on his normal four days of rest, but he chose to take the start against the Marlins on Tuesday at Fenway, after the offday.

It's the story of the season: the much-hyped Red Sox pitching staff continues to struggle, underperform, and end up on the DL.  Hopefully Morales can do something relatively rare for the Sox this season, and get the win.

Interleague Woes

So I know I'm a little late here, but I haven't had reliable internet for the last few days, and I absolutely NEED to chime in on interleague play.

As I'm sure you know, the Red Sox lack a "natural rival." MLB initially tried out Atlanta, but there are so few people who remember the Braves in Boston that it just didn't make sense. This year, it's the Philadelphia Phillies in the "rival" spot - the NL team that the Red Sox will play two series against. Every year, the Yankees get six games against the moribund Mets, and the Rays get six versus the Marlins.


What the hell, Bud Selig?! I know this is about ticket sales, but it's woefully unfair. The Red Sox's interleague opponents are a combined 115-101 (141-118 if you count the Phillies twice, which makes sense since we play them twice as much). The combined record of the Yankees opponents is 108-113 (130-136 when you count the Mets twice), and the record of the Rays opponents is a deplorable 107-115 (130-137 when you count the Marlins twice).

But we should all thank Jason Bay and the Mets for handing the Yankees a series loss...

This is absurd. It's one thing that MLB doesn't have any semblance of a balanced schedule, assuring that the Red Sox, Rays, and Yankees will beat up on each other, and the AL West (home of just four teams) will generally have a clear winner.

I'm by no means a baseball purist. I like the expansion teams (but no more, please!), and I like interleague, but not in its current manifestation. Within the divisions, every team should play the same teams the same number of times. The Rays will probably pick up at least 3 more games on the Red Sox on scheduling alone, and that is more than enough to decide the division.