Monday, September 14, 2009

The True Victim of an Unbalanced Schedule


As Blue Jays fans, we're used to getting a raw deal from the unbalanced schedule. Beyond the fact that "our" team is 7 games over .500 against the rest of the league but 20 games under in the home division and so on and so forth, we getting robbed in a different way. Simply: not enough games against Detroit.

Playing the Tigers is great fun. The closest team geographically, an old rival of many battles and shared fans, a team with a great ballpark and nice uniforms. While I appreciate the tradition of pitting the Jays against the Tigers at the season's outset, it also means only one more series all year long. That blows.

As a collective, I'm sure we can muster up the support for the Jays and Major League Baseball to eschew one meaningless interleague series in favor an extra Tigers tilt. I can't help but think there's more revenue in it for all involved parties. If a return to a fair and balanced schedule were to surface, I'd gladly take an empty series in Kansas City or two in exchange for another trip to Comerica.

Irony Alert


The Jays close out the season series against the Tigers tonight with David Purcey making his first big league start since April. Despite what I've stated above, and despite David Purcey making a scant 17 big league starts; tonight's will be his FOURTH against the Tigers. That makes less sense than most things. Even more bizarrely, he's kind of owned the power hitting and right hand-heavy Tigers. Only 9 hits allowed in 17 innings (what? 13 walks. Hush your mouth.) While most seem to have completely written Purcey off, I'm excited to see what he can do. Big dudes with live arms will get more than their fair share of chances, hopefully Sweaty Dave can make the most of this one.

6 comments:

  1. Can we play the Tigers every time we're supposed to play the Yankees or Sox instead? That would help to balance the unbalancedness of an unbalanced schedule. Fair, right?

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  2. If the Jays didn't host the Sox or Yanks 18 times a year, they'd have gone broke and moved years ago.

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  3. You raise a good point. How about in place of games on the road against the Yankees or Sox we play the Tigers? Can't see how anyone could possibly find fault with that...

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  4. I'm for anything that advocates getting to watch Granderson and Miggy Cabrera play more times a year.

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  5. Justin verlander is a less douchey version of Burnett. Who doesn't like to watch that?

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  6. As one of the contributors to Walk Off Walk, I know you don't hold it against David Purcey that he walks an astounding number of batters. He's trying his very best to make WOW a self-fufilling prophecy.

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