June 25, 2012

The End of Interleague as We Know It

With the Yankees beating the Mets 6-5 Sunday night, the current version of interleague play comes to an end. With 15 teams in each league next season, there will be constant IL series throughout the year. Instead of teams playing one short and one long stretch of interleague games, they will be an almost daily occurrence.

The AL wins this round of play 142-110, a .563 winning percentage. Note that run scoring did not change much when a pitcher or designated hitter batted. The AL outscored the NL 4.61 to 4.12 runs per games with the DH, 4.45 to 4.09 without the DH. One of the problems that faces the NL is with all the pitchers carried, they can’t afford to carry a great hitter on the bench, so a designated hitter doesn’t add much to their offenses.

Texas was the big winner, going 14-4 against NL opponents. They managed to gain two games on the Angles, who finished third at 12-6. The Yankees used their might to go 13-5, gaining two games on Baltimore (11-7) and four on Tampa Bay (9-9). Arizona owned the best winning percentage in the NL at 9-6, .600, while Pittsburgh and Washington won the most games, both 10-8.

The bottom seven teams all came from the NL, with the Rockies going 2-13 for the worst record, and Miami 5-13 for the second spot.

According to the ESPN broadcast Sunday night, all teams will play 20 IL games next season. We’ll see how the NL adjusts. They should at least think about calling up a great AAA hitter and sending down a pitcher when they face AL teams. An NL team that can beat AL teams can gain a bit of an advantage, certainly enough to move into the second wild card slot.

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