The Yankees and Pirates turned back the clock on Sunday. They played a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium. Teams playing a doubleheader, of course, isn't that rare. Most play one or two a season. But what made Sunday's so unique was that it wasn't a doubleheader of the day-night variety that we've become accustomed to. Instead they went old school, playing two games for the price of one with only about a half-hour in between.
Of course, the increase in doubleheaders can be directly attributed to the existence of year-round interleague play. Interleague opponents don't return, so the easiest way to make up games is to play two. Either that or hoping you have a common off day, and that both teams are willing/able to make it up then. With so few off days during the course of the season, and with most of them being travel days, you don't want to give one up unless you absolutely have to.
It's the whole idea of losing off days to play makeups that got Michael Kay and Paul O'Neill talking during today's twinbill. Kay suggested that, as a way of giving teams more off days, they should give everybody a regularly scheduled doubleheader or two on a Sunday.
They even posed that as a social media question, and the one answer they shared was from a guy in favor of it. This dude's argument was that it would keep players fresher. I'm not sure he actually knows what he's talking about. How exactly does a doubleheader help keep players fresher if they're playing 18 innings in one day instead of nine? Why do you think starters are only playing one of the two games, or starting one in the field and DHing the other?
Then there's the pitching. The most obvious problem with doubleheaders is that you need two starting pitchers. That means you've got to adjust your rotation. And if there's no off day immediately following the doubleheader, one of those guys would presumably have to make his next start on three-days' rest. Or, if there hasn't been an off day beforehand, one of the two might have to start one of the doubleheader games on short rest. That's why you see so many teams calling up a guy from the minors to start one of the games of a doubleheader. Just so they don't mess up the rotation.
When teams played doubleheaders regularly, they generally used a four-man rotation, so starters were pitching every fourth day anyway. As a result, the doubleheader was no big deal. Starters were also more apt to throw complete games back then. If you've got your starter going 7-8, even nine innings, you're not taxing your bullpen.
Speaking of bullpens, managers have to be careful how to work them. For the most part, you're probably not going to ask a reliever to pitch in two games in the same day. Not even your closer. (The LOOGYs, who are most likely only going to pitch to one or two hitters, might be the exception to this rule.) So, in addition to figuring out what you're going to do about your starting staff, you've got to figure out what you're going to do with the bullpen. Who's working what game? If he pitches in game one, can I use him in game two? And for how long? What about extra innings? There are plenty of reasons why managers hate doubleheaders.
If you were to poll the players, they'd probably say they don't like doubleheaders either. That's a looooooong day. And again, it's a lot to ask of them to play 18 innings in a day. Playing one game takes a pretty big toll physically. They might not get that many days off, but at least they're mentally and physically prepared to play a game every single day. It's completely different, both physically and psychologically, to get ready for that second one.
And how about the owners? Well, they aren't going to give up a gate that easily. That's the main reason why we're not seeing the return of the regular doubleheader anytime soon. A straight doubleheader is one ticket, so you're losing one of your 81 home dates. If you're a team like the Marlins or the Astros and you're only drawing 25-30,000 a game, that's not that big deal. If you're the Yankees or the Red Sox (or you're playing one of those teams), that's a huge difference. You're losing an attendance of 40,000 or more. That's how the whole day-night doubleheader thing became commonplace in the first place. An afternoon game and a night game on the same day is two separate tickets. No lost revenue.
Another reason why the doubleheader has become nothing more than the solution for rainouts is because the schedule is set up differently now. Back when doubleheaders were a regular part of each team's schedule, they traveled by train. They needed the extra off days to give them more time to get from one city to another. Now that teams fly everywhere, on private charters, getting places is less of an issue. You can get from New York to Seattle in just a few hours. You can leave after a Thursday night game and be playing somewhere else on Friday night. Since you can play every night, you don't have to account for travel by building doubleheaders into the schedule.
Doubleheaders have been a part of baseball as long as anyone can remember. And they're not going away anytime soon. But I don't think there's any need to start scheduling them regularly. The way they do things now is fine. The doubleheader is the way to make up the rainouts that every team is inevitably going to have during the season. Doubleheaders are a way of preventing teams from losing off days. There's no reason for teams to start playing more of them just so they can have more of them.
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