Who could blame him for thinking almost daily about any of that? But you know what he has tried not to think about? Here’s what: So if we don’t play in Buffalo and Dunedin, when we were (basically) the visiting team, we probably get in, right?” 500 in Dunedin and Buffalo (22-22 in those two places combined), but 14 games over (25-11) in Toronto. “And you think about the fact that we were. “You go back and you think about every blown lead,” Shapiro said. But when you add up everything the Blue Jays were up against, their scars from 2021 match up against pretty much any team’s scars you would like to nominate. He’s still scarred by what happened in Cleveland. He recognizes that he was not working in the AL East at the time. You would be correct about that.īlue Jays president Mark Shapiro lived through an almost identical miss-the-playoffs nightmare with Cleveland in 2005. I’m guessing you would like to point out that the AL East has not cornered the market on late-season pain. OK, I know what you’re thinking here if you don’t live in one of those AL East hotbeds. And playing on the road all year (until they finally returned to Toronto on July 30)? And then, after everything we’ve done, to get to that point on the last day, having to win, and we won, and still the other teams won, so we’re out? And then having to watch the playoffs? Yeah. “First time in history that four teams in one division won 90 games or more?” Montoyo said, gulping when that subject came up. And they had to play us and the Yankees and Red Sox in like 60 games, right?” That team had 91 wins, and they played in three different (home) ballparks. We won 96 (in 2019) and barely got into the wild card. THE ATHLETIC: “ Do you ever think about how many years you’ve won 90 games, or 93, or somewhere in there - and you were a wild card, or you just missed the wild card - and you had to think about how many times you played those teams?”ĬASH (without looking up any of this): “ We won 90 (in 2018) and got nothing. You think that doesn’t happen? You think those lost games and lost seasons don’t stick in their brains forever? Check out this exchange with Rays manager Kevin Cash. They also are not going to miss heading home after barely missing the playoffs and then bolting out of bed at 3 in the morning, thinking about that game or two or five they lost in the ninth inning to one of those other AL East superpowers. So the teams that have to play those games mean no disrespect to the other divisions when they say this, but they are not going to miss those 20 games. But face it: Those 20 AL East games are different, kind of like the way that playing golf and playing the Masters are slightly different. That will be true in all the other divisions, too. each remaining team in leagueĤ6 Games of Interleague Play - 3 games apiece vs. Here’s how the 2023 schedule will look:ĥ6 Games in Division - 14 vs. Which means 20 fewer division games a year. Starting next year, that number will shrink to 14 times. It’s good for all of us to not have to play each other that many times.”įor two decades now, these teams have been beating on each other 19 freaking times apiece, season after season. “So I think it’s good for all the teams that we’re going to do that - not only for the Blue Jays. “I think I’m in the best division in baseball,” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said the other day. They also do not seem saddened that instead of making three trips apiece to the Bronx and Fenway every season, they will now be asked to make only two. You can probably deduce why.įor some reason, they are not going to miss playing nearly 50 percent of their games against the other teams in their division.įor some reason, they are not going to miss playing nearly 25 percent of their games just against the Yankees and Red Sox. By which I mean …Īnd I’m especially talking about the portion of the AL East known as Toronto and Tampa Bay. But I’m here to reveal one group that definitely has contemplated the meaning of life after the unbalanced schedule. Yet very few people have paid much attention to it, possibly because 50 free agents were signing every day for a couple of weeks there. So it’s a major, sport-changing development. And it will mean that starting next year, all 30 teams will play every one of the other 29 teams every season. Yes, the (more) balanced schedule is coming.
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