Yet another Yankees-Red Sox weekend on TV. Ugh.

There are plenty of important series in Major League Baseball this weekend. Atlanta plays in Philadelphia, with the Braves fighting for the division lead and the Phillies trying to stave off the Brewers for a Wild Card slot. The Toronto Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays are meeting, probably to decide Wild Card seeding, which could impact home field in the first round of the playoffs. There are probably half-dozen other series which could help decide division races, Wild Card berths, or seeding … and they don’t include the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.

I counted six series this weekend that have no bearing on any races, if you assume that Minnesota and Baltimore are out of the race and the St. Louis Cardinals can’t blow an eight-game lead.  In other words, there’s a lot of good stuff to watch. You would think that, since MLB has tried so hard to sell the expanded playoffs as creating more meaningful games in September, that the last thing they would do is televise a bunch of games that are completely inconsequential. You would be wrong.

Instead of a weekend full of tense nail-biting games, we are being fed Yankees and Red Sox yet again.

The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees are on the national broadcast on FOX on Thursday night, the featured game on Apple TV+ Friday night, on MLB Network Saturday afternoon, and on ESPN Sunday night.

It would take a series of bizarre events for the Yankees to end up anywhere but the second seed in the American League. They are 5.5 games up in their division, 7.5 games behind Houston for the top seed, and 8.5 games clear of Cleveland. As for the Red Sox, they are deep in last place and have a reasonable likelihood of being mathematically eliminated before the end of the week. Neither team has been fun to watch since the All-Star break. Since July 1, the Yankees are 32-37, while the Red Sox are 28-41.

Sounds like appointment viewing, doesn’t it? What we know with some certainty is that the games will last four-plus hours, we will see flashbacks of David Ortiz and Bucky Dent, some fans will behave badly, and the announcers will do their best to convince us that this rivalry has some cosmic significance that transcends sports. And most of us will be tuned in to the San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos on Sunday Night Football, because we would rather watch something that matters.

But … Aaron Judge you say! First of all, they would be showing these games if Aaron Judge was hitting .180, so let’s not pretend that’s why this is happening. It’s indeed possible that Judge will hit a landmark home run at some point during this series. Judge’s next home run will be number 60, which would make him the ninth player to reach that mark. After that he ties Roger Maris for the AL record, then he holds the record for himself. Many of us will try to see as many of Judge’s at-bats as possible until he passes Maris. Even after that, it will be fun to see how far on the all-time list he can climb.

But we don’t have to sit through 16 hours of Yankees-Red Sox to do that. Anyone with the slimmest connection to social media will get a notice on their phone whenever Judge is due to hit in an inning, and multiple sports networks will break away from regular programming to show his at-bats. If other games were being shown this weekend, they would break away from those games to show Judge’s at-bats just like they do when someone has a no-hitter in the ninth inning.

The only rationale I can come up with is that this is punishment for everyone who hasn’t bought the MLB streaming package. The good news is that next year the Yankees and Red Sox play only 13 times instead of 19, thanks to the increase in interleague play. That means two more weekends where we will get to see some other teams play on TV.