New York Yankees, Cleveland Guardians suffer from MLB schedule

The Cleveland Guardians and New York Yankees received two very unnecessary off days in the American League Division Series … and the MLB lockout is what really made this delay happen.

With the MLB lockout, more playoff teams were added and the season got started later. To preserve the 162-game regular season, they needed to begin the postseason on October 7. The problem with this plan is that MLB executives did not want to play too late into November. This means they had to condense an extra round and remove off days in the ALDS and ALCS. The same applies to the National League.

For this series, the MLB decided to give the AL teams an off day in between Games 1 and 2 while the NL teams played on Wednesday. The New York Yankees and Cleveland Guardians would have had Friday off had the game been played on Thursday. All the division series teams will have to play three games in a row if the series goes to a fifth game. Games three, four, and five would be played without an off day. Ratings play a big part in this, but it’s not right for the division winners to be idle for six out of seven games.

On Friday, the New York Yankees will now have played just one game in the last eight days.

This easily could have been avoided if they just played yesterday. The off day yesterday could have been used as a travel day after a potential game four. They wouldn’t have lost any days on the schedule before the championship series. Wednesday was the perfect day to play the ALDS series in New York, but now the Yankees and Guardians would have to play four straight days without an off day if it goes five games.

It’s frustrating because the forecast looked bleak for several days. Now MLB losses out anyway, with the Yankees and Guardians playing an afternoon game before traveling to Cleveland.

The championship series schedule could become even more problematic. If this series goes to seven games, there will be four straight days without an off day. The AL gets just one day off before the World Series, but the NL would get two. We saw some of this format in 2020. It has a negative outcome on the bullpen and hurts the starting pitchers’ rest days.

It’s been three years without a fully normal season due to the pandemic and lockout. I just want to see a normal postseason format that is fair to all teams. MLB needs to fix this … and add more retractable roofs to their stadiums.