Rain, Rain Go Away

Early in this baseball season, one thing has been a constat: rain has already wreaked some major havoc on the schedule.  The Orioles and Rangers played the season's first doubleheader on Saturday, the Mets and Rockies play another one tomorrow, the Rockies had a home game snowed out, and there's been more rain in the Northeast than anyone cares to talk about.

All these rainouts create major problems.  Of course, when they happen early in the season, the good old day-night doubleheader the next time that team visits the city is a possibility, but things are further complicated when the rainout occurs during an opponent's only trip to the city.  When that happens, the easiest thing to do is usually to find a common off day and make up the game then.  But each team only gets 16 off days a season, so finding a common one isn't as easy as you might think.  And sometimes a mutual off day isn't even an option. 

For example, the Yankees and Twins had a game rained out last Wednesday.  They have a couple of common off days, but one is before the Yankees start a West Coast trip.  That means Minnesota would have to fly in for a single day game.  That's not going to happen.  Another Yankees-Twins common off day falls right smack in the midle of a Minnesota homestand, so that one's out too.  The only mutual off day that's even close to doable is September 8.  That sounds simple enough, right?  Problem is...now the Yankees have to make up a home game against the Orioles, too.  They play a three-game series with the Orioles on September 5, 6 and 7.  Making that a four-game set would be really easy, if September 8 wasn't the only available date to play Minnesota.  Fortunately, the Orioles also visit Yankee Stadium on July 29, 30, 31, so a day-night doubleheader on Saturday looks likely.

That just illustrates my point.  Of those 16 off days, it's a rule that no more than 10 can come before the All-Star Break.  But the abundance of off days in April is staggering.  How many teams play their season opener, then have a day off before resuming a three-game series, then have either the following Thursday or Monday off, meaning they play just three games in the first five days of the season?  Going back to the Yankees for another example, they play the Rangers this weekend, have Monday off, play a two-game series in Toronto, then have Thursday off.  There's absolutely no need to have off days on both ends of a two-game series!

All those April off days create so many problems down the road.  For starters, the weather in April sucks in a lot of the country (as we've seen this year).  So, adding scheduled off days to games postponed by weather means some teams are playing as many games in April as they do in October.  But even worse, the rare scheduled off days after the All-Star Break disappear because of April rainouts.  And that's if there are even mutual off days available to reschedule!

The day-night doubleheader is usually the best solution.  That preserves any scheduled off days and doesn't make a team have to travel into a city just to play one game.  But day-night doubleheaders are only possible if the visiting team goes back to that city.  The Rangers don't go back to Baltimore this year, so they had to play a doubleheder in April.  Ditto with the Rockies and Mets.  This is why the Twins-Yankees thing is such a problem. 

If Major League Baseball wants to give teams so many off days in April, they should make sure that the visiting team returns to the city later in the season.  Four of the six divisions have five teams.  In every division except the NL Central, you play three series in each city against every other team in your division.  That's 12 of your 26 home series.  Throw in Interleague Play and that leaves 11 series to play against the remaining teams in your league.  Let's use the AL East or Central as our example.  That means seven of the remaining nine teams visit once and the other two come to town twice.  Since each league has two five-team divisions, there has to be one non-division series at all times.  Those non-division series should be ones where the visiting team comes back later in the season. 

Or, even better, don't have so many damn off days in April!  It's in the CBA that teams can't be scheduled to play more than 17 days in a row.  But there are so many cases where a team loses its off days because of makeup games and ends up playing everyday for three weeks, sometimes even longer.  In August!  I guess the rationale is that teams are better equipped to play doubleheaders with expanded rosters in September, but you can't make up a May rainout with a doubleheader if you don't play that team in September!  They complain about this with interleague games, but no one says anything when the same problem arises with an AL vs. AL series.  They should.  April rainouts create major scheduling headaches in August and September.