I Don’t Care

It seems that Major League Baseball has finally done it. They have joined the other major sports in making their regular season irrelevant. The Red Sox just lost a crushing game to the hated Yankees with first place in the division on the line, and I don’t care. My overriding feeling? “Eh, they’ll be in the playoffs. Probably still win the division. Not gonna worry about a loss.”

Now, to be fair, I’m not exactly sure what caused this ambivalence. Yes, MLB expanded the playoff structure to allow more teams that don’t deserve a shat at a title to get one. But, really it’s just been an extra team added recently, and that ream does have to do the single elimination thing. But, as we saw last year, a team can quite easily get on a run from the wild card to the ALCS. It’s all about the match-ups, like any playoff series. So, the new structure probably isn’t the entire reason for my apathy.

There’s also the parody…or lack thereof. At the moment, there are probably a handful of teams that have a legit shot at a playoff spot…of which there are a handful of. I suppose if there were ten teams fighting hard for the top spot in the American League, I might worry about the Sox missing out on one of the five spots. But, there’s really not. With the number of teams actually tanking or so bad they might as well be, things aren’t really in jeopardy.

Sure a win against the Yankees would help, potentially, with playoff seeding. The head-to-head matchup could decide the division. But, geez, the Sox play the Yankees at least a dozen more times this season. I know every game counts…but this would be like freaking out about an Opening Day loss.

Maybe I could be annoyed that this was once again the bullpen not being able to pitch in the eighth inning. I still don’t understand what it is about that one specific inning. But, help is apparently on the way for that. So that doesn’t even stress me.

Frankly, the only things about last night’s game that bug me are Yankees fans. When the Yankees lose, their fans are silent. When they win, they’re beyond obnoxious. And suddenly everywhere. So, I’d much prefer a Red Sox victory for that reason alone. But if I have to stay of twitter today, I suppose I can.

After all, it all goes back to normal tonight.