Today's Matchup: Jarrod Washburn (2-2, 4.04) vs. Scott Erickson (1-3, 6.57)

I really think (and have thought) that interleague is the most pointless, stupid gimmick that Major League Baseball has tried to regain fan interest since the last strike. My problems stem from the same problems that the Chronicler has (link is not currently working). These essentially amount to the fact that it takes away from the All Star Game and World Series and it ruins the schedule. Before the last strike, the AL and NL operated as essentially separate leagues, with different rules and records. MLB was a blanket outfit that basically connected them for the purposes of the All-Star Game, the World Series and combined records. Interleague has begun to change that (and actually Selig has tried to change it in more ways, such as having MLB umpires instead of AL and NL umpires), and I do not think it is a good change. The other major issue is the one of scheduling. I believe that scheduling should always be unbalanced towards more games against divisional opponents. When interleague play started, they changed it to a balanced schedule so that teams in the same division would have the exact same schedule, while teams in the same league would have nearly identical schedules except for interleague games. There was also a plan to rotate which division each division played (like the NFL does, where West meets West one year, then East next, etc.), which they did not do for a few years. The reason why they did not do that is because the only games that drew significantly more attendance were the geographical rival games, and if you switched the divisions every year, they would only play every third. So at some point, they switched teams to unbalanced schedules (so teams face divisional opponents more) as well as interleague rotations except for the geographical rivals (this all happened in some order I don't remember). This has made an absolute mockery of the schedule. Now teams in the same division play each other roughly the same number of times and a lot, but they play other teams in the same league a vastly different number of times (one team in a division may play the Yankees 6 times, while another 12 or something like that) and they end up playing completely different interleague teams. All of this can severely skew the division races in such a way that a team with a significantly easier schedule can win the division. Anyways, enough ranting.

RICHARD: Wow. Walking an American League pitcher. That's got to be one of the seven deadly sins...

RICHARD: We scored 3 runs on the Figgins gapper, and that's great. But please Ron, let's never send the pitcher to score from first when there's a chance - no matter how remote - that we're going to see a play at the plate. It's just not worth the injury, or even the effort from the pitcher.

RICHARD: Jarrod Washburn home/road splits:

      ERA   BAA
HOME  8.10  .403
AWAY  2.52  .277

Odd, considering that Angel Stadium is a fairly neutral ballpark.

RICHARD: The report on Vlad is "jammed shoulder", though he's going for x-rays as we speak. It didn't look that bad when it happened, and he walked off on his own, so hopefully it's not too serious.

RICHARD: Washburn has been lifted with an injury. When it rains...

RICHARD: Coincidence?

Jeff DaVanon's OBP during Maya's hiatus: .278
Jeff DaVanon's OBP since Maya's return (March 11th): .466

RICHARD: Rivera makes it a rout with a grand-slam in the ninth. Angels take it in a walk, 9-0.