As usual, Bill Shaikin has the scoop:
The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees are tentatively set to play at Dodger Stadium next season, the highlights of what could be the most attractive home schedule in club history.Interesting that there would be interleague games played in August.
The Red Sox and Yankees never have played at Dodger Stadium in the same season. The Red Sox are scheduled for three games here in August, the Yankees for two games here in July.
The Dodgers also are set to play two games at Yankee Stadium in June. The 2013 schedule has been distributed to teams but has not been released publicly and is subject to change.
I'm (mostly) all for this, because it beats watching Padres play Dodgers 18 times a year, but on the other hand aren't we setting ourselves up for a lot of tough games against perennial contenders? I know it puts butts in the seats, but does it put wins in the win column?
More to come as next season's schedule is solidified...until then, I'll be planning my trip to New York in June!
13 comments:
The 15/15 AL/NL team split next year is going to make interleague play a persistent reality all summer long. I am really not okay with this.
But to be fair, I originally thought the Wild Card was a joke, and now I like it. (I'd probably like the two-wild-card thing as well if they hadn't have retroactively shoehorned it into this year's already-set schedule).
Your point about strength of schedule is key, but it remains to be seen how the distribution of games actually works.
With the Astros switching over to balance the leagues at 15 and the divisions at 5, that weird don't-play-every-team format we saw in interleague now will hopefully be dropped.
I don't mind playing the Yanks and Sox and Rays as long as the Giants, Dbacks, and Rockies all play them too.
For me, that's been my only standing objection to interleague thus far, and I hope the fix that ish now that they have the opportunity.
@Stubbs: I don't think they can fix that parity, plus keep the unbalanced schedule. Unless they stop us from having to play every divisional rival 18 times each year.
I also think it's funny that you're giving the Padres a pass on the AL East teams. The Padres can play Toronto, I presume.
what is this serifed font, btw???!!!
If the Padres play the Blue Jays, does anyone really win? Hey Dusty, if ya come to NY, I'll buy you a beer at Yankee Stadium (but just one, that place is crazily expensive) - it'll be good to see fellow fans in Blue there. If and when I go, I always wear the Blue, even tho there is no reason to at an AL contest - and I have been booed out of the bleachers once or twice for my wardrobe selection.
@goodchild27: maybe the problem is the whole not wearing pants thing
At goodchild27
I'm definitely planning on making this my annual baseball trip, so let's keep in touch.
At Sax
Ahhh, the less-than sophisticated Blogger interface must not have stripped out the source formatting as I told it to when I pasted in the quoted text.
I'll go back and fix it later when I have computer access. And I'll fire an intern just to put the other interns on alert.
Ok, serif emergency seems to have dissipated. I'm moving us back to DefCon 3.
@Dusty: no worries, it was interesting to see the change in font scenery.
Don't fire the cute intern.
The Red Sox aren't contenders anymore
@ Sax
Ok. I'll keep him.
Forgive me for Scooby-dooing the shit out of this one, but I don't see why they couldn't balance the interleague match-ups, at least in terms of playing the same teams. Don't forget we lose +/-6 games with the Astros.
4 Teams x18 In-division = 72
10 Teams x6-7 In-League = 60-70
5 Teams x3-4 AL East = 15-20
6 games vs. AL Rival = 6
That's only 153 baseline, and the 9 extra games can be distributed into 4 game series and such. There would still be SOME imbalance, but at least in division opponents would face the all the same opponents throughout the year.
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