It's not the divisional series

A public service announcement:

For the baseball writers who think it's called the "divisional series": No.

http://tinyurl.com/yer3huk

It's the Division Series.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/schedule/ps.jsp?y=09

 

It's also the series, at least in the AL, that can't decide when it's going to start. NYT's Tyler Kepner tweeted that the Yankees would play the Central winner Wednesday, but the LAT's item about the Angels opening against Boston on Thursday has been pulled from the site. AP says the Yankees might not decide until an hour after the Tuesday Tigers-Twins game, which is the MLB deadline.

 

The Yankees don't have to announce their decision, but it's been reported that they told CC Sabathia that he was pitching Wednesday. There is no logical reason for them to pick the other series. Why give the Twins/Tigers a break?

 

I guess this is the time to ask why the fuck the Yankees get to decide which day they want to play.

The series involving the winner of Tuesday's playoff game shouldn't start til Thursday.

 

Best record in each league gets to decide which series they want.

 

Almost. The best record in the league that is hosting the WS gets to pick. The series in the other league are both the same.

 

Yanks would prefer series that goes Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday...needing only 3 starters.
But that also would allow Tigers, who are pitching Porcello on Tuesday, to go with Jackson on Wednesday, Verlander on Friday and Porcello on Sunday, so the AL Central playoff doesn't hurt the Tigers rotation that much.

 

Wait, can someone explain this. The Yanks can choose which team they play, or which day they play?

 

which day

 

Thanks.

 

When you think about it, this really is the most logical way to do it. There has always been one series that had the extra day in it, because that's the only way they can stagger them so there aren't four games in one day during the week.

Used to be that the team playing the wild-card in the league with home-field advantage in the WS started their series a day later. So they got the extra day before the series, not during it. It was theoretically a reward for the team with the best record to get the extra day before the series. However, then someone realized that a) the team with the best record doesn't always play the WC, cuz they could be in the same division and b) maybe the team would rather have the day off after Game 1, instead of before it.

It's actually a pretty fair system, but it's complicated this year by the fact that the one race undecided happens to be the team playing the No. 1 seed and they happen to have a conflict with Brett Favre. This particular perfect storm isn't likely to happen again.