Jim Sankey: Extra Innings: MLB changes cloud fair weather fans

May 23—By now, you either love or hate the changes major league baseball has made going forward.

Larger bases, pitch clock rules, restricted pick-off attempts and shift bans have all altered the game, with a generally positive reaction by players, coaches and fans.

But perhaps the change that has the greatest possible negative effects is the new format of each team's schedule.

Over the past 21 seasons, each team played nearly half of its 162 games against the four other teams in its division. Last year, each team played its four division foes 19 times, totaling 76 games.

Now that's fine for the National League Central Cardinals, who for years have loved feasting on the Pirates, Cubs, Brewers and Reds for their combined 76 contests. Meanwhile the American League East Division Orioles were preyed upon by the Yankees, Rays, Blue Jays and Red Sox for those 76 games and the NL East Division Marlins and Nationals were stuck with the Mets, Braves and Phillies 76 times.

Such a gap between the haves and have nots became more important as MLB expanded the playoffs from 10 teams to 14 teams in 2021. The more balanced schedule lessened the effect the strength or weakness of a team's division plays in determining the post-season participants.

The number of divisional games for each team is now 52 as each team faces its division foes in four series — two at home and two away

There are also two fewer games against non-division opponents (64 total) from the same league: six games against six of their league opponents and seven games against four of their league opponents.

But the biggest change in the schedule is the increase of interleague games, from 20 to 46 games. Each team will divide four games against the team the league years ago determined to be their "natural rival"; teams in Chicago, Los Angles and New York are obvious, as are teams like Cleveland and Cincinnati. You'll recall that the Pirates "natural" rival is Detroit — "natural" only because they are among other-league teams who have no rivalry at all but are geographically close.

The other 42 interleague games for each club will be split evenly among the 14 other non-league teams. Each club will play seven of those series at home (a total of 21 games) and seven of those series away (again, a total of 21 games.)

At first glance, it appears to be a match made in fan heaven. For the first time in modern baseball history, all 30 MLB teams will play each other in the regular season. This set-up now provides fans more opportunities to see their favorite teams compete and allows their fans to see how their favorite team competes against stars from the other league.

The Pirates play eight more teams at home that make only one trip into Pittsburgh this season. So far seven teams have already made their lone visit PNC Park: White Sox, Astros, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Rockies, D-Backs and Rangers.

None of the games were rainouts. But if a couple of the games in a series or in multiple series had been washed out, when might those postponements be made up? Imagine the logistics of trying to find the same off-days of two teams, sometimes from opposite coasts, for makeups; you can understand why rain delays have been longer in 2023 than in previous seasons. Remember the 2:30 delay before the start of the April 30 Pirates-Nationals game. Several teams have had lengthy delays, although none longer than the appalling four-hour delay on May 14 between the Nats and the Mets, before the game was then postponed. And these are intra-division teams that play two series in each city.

With snow and rain both common in March and April, most teams have been fortunate that foul weather hasn't provided fans looking for fair weather more negative experiences.

Is there anything more miserable than sitting in a ballpark with cold rain drenching fans who are not happy due to the weather?

Still, for teams, the headaches of delays are preferable to postponements, especially in the latter days of the season, which could be almost impossible to reschedule.

And there are bound to be seasons where multiple consecutive days of postponements occur.

MLB's new schedule format was not well thought out. An alternative must be created for next season.

JIM SANKEY is the Pittsburgh Pirates columnist for Allied News. His work, Extra Innings, appears weekly during the MLB season.

JIM SANKEY is the Pittsburgh Pirates columnist for Allied News. His work, Extra Innings, appears weekly during the MLB season.