BASEBALL'S SCHEDULING IMBALANCE REVISITED; OH, AND ADAM LIND CAN HIT

Not that The Geek is taking victory laps over the kitchen table at seeing this, but The Canadian Press ran an article yesterday noting that some major-league managers are upset with the unbalanced schedule. Of course, now that it's at the playing-for-pride stage for a lot of teams, a lot of managers are suddenly willing to sound like sour grapes, especially those who are named John Gibbons.

This is a non-starter with a lot of fans, who as noted before, are always quicker to just believe their team is underachieving. Anyway, here's a May 25 post -- 3½ months ago! --where this author's alter ego inveighed about the Blue Jays' situation of being ...

"... at a double disadvantage, since baseball tries to have it both ways by playing an unbalanced schedule in order to have more matchups between rivals, but then having everyone compete for one wild-card spot."

For instance, the Detroit Tigers have reason not to be so worried about their once double-digit lead in the AL Central now standing at just 1½ games. Six of the Tigers' final 10 games will be against the last-place Kansas City Royals, against whom they're 11-1 this season.

Detroit's closest pursuer, the Minnesota Twins, face the Royals just four more times -- and will also have a 10-day road trip that starts Thursday. The Chicago White Sox, four and 2½ games out in the division and wild-card races respectively, have three games left against the Royals.

As far as the Jays are concerned, being self-righteous about this now, on Sept. 13, is moot. Spectacularly moot. Besides, the Jays are 11-14 against AL Central teams this season, compared to a 15-13 record against the Evil Empires.

Of course, that might just prove the point, however academic it is: The Jays always have to set up their starting rotation around matchups against the Yankees and Red Sox. So, in theory at least, this might hurt them when they go against the so-called lesser teams.

With a balanced schedule, or expanded playoffs, would there be more reason to watch the Jays right now other than seeing Adam Lind get his first taste of the majors? Ah, it's a non-starter. As far as us diehards are concerned, the Jays are all underachievers who probably would have found a way to fall out of contention, but you can never know for sure.

As for Lind, all he's done since his callup was get on base in half his plate appearances and line out six extra-base hits in 22 at-bats. Anyone want to talk about him playing left and Reed Johnson manning right field next year, so the Jays can hide Alex Rios at DH?

(UPDATE: As an astute reader points out, I am WAY OFF BASE for suggesting that. He notes the lefty-hitting, lefty-throwing Lind has a rep as a poor outfielder, and to be honest, when I first saw him he looked like someone suited to first base, and not just because he was wearing Willie Upshaw's old No. 26. But Rios often looks like a below-average right-fielder, and that impression had been formed before his Fenway flub. That said, he's probably a better athlete than Lind, and thus has more room for improvement.)

OTHER BUSINESS

• And Ted Rogers was really looking forward to buying that ivory back scratcher: the Jays are reportedly going to lose $25 million Cdn this year, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to Rogers Communications' projected revenues for this year of $8.8 billion.
• For all of you who worship the NFL, the Toronto Star's Dave Perkins is willing to vow, as the late, great Jim (Shaky) Hunt did, that a team will not come to T-Dot in his lifetime: "An NFL team is not going to happen here and I'd make the same bet Shaky did, and for a lot more, if I could figure out a way to collect." (See previous posts.)
• My friend Neil Acharya has a great line on the Rick DiPietro signing: "There are only two ways you get 15 years in New York state. Being sentenced to Rikers Island, and being garth snowed."

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.