MLB did the St. Louis Cardinals no favors with their 60-game schedule this season

It almost seemed in recent days as if Major League Baseball was hiding the St. Louis Cardinals’ schedule.

Other teams released their makeshift calendar a couple of days before the home team’s was made public. Now I can see why. The Cardinals were absolutely hosed when it comes to their slate of games, and they’ll face a tough road to the playoffs because of it.

The Cardinals’ chief rivals, the Chicago Cubs, are the prime beneficiaries of the imbalance. MLB told us when the 60-game season was announced that clubs would play 10 games each against their division rivals and five against the counterpart division in the opposing league. What they failed to mention is that St. Louis will play seven of their 10 games against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Likewise, the Cardinals will play six of their 10 games against the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park and only four of them at home at Busch Stadium.

There’s really no reason for this. Want to cut down and travel AND make the schedule balanced? Play a five-game home and away series against each team. That might get boring over the course of a 162-game season. But, maybe you’ve heard, this isn’t a full season. Personally, I think it sounds intriguing to play a five-game set against your division rivals. Typically, teams have five starters, so it would be a very honest match-up with each team compelled to use its whole rotation in a series. They should have played five home and five away against the division rivals then play three in one park and two in the other against the opposing league foes. That way it’s as balanced as possible. Was it really that difficult to figure things out? It’s almost as if Major League Baseball is going out of its way to try to create controversy.

Do I think baseball was trying to stick it to the Cardinals? No. Based on recent history, the much more plausible explanation is that the people in charge, like Rob Manfred, are just not that in touch with what fans want to see. Either that or they’re just not very smart.

Another gripe with the schedule is that the Cardinals start the season at home against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and then they go on the road for three series in a row.

Make no mistake, as we read every day, major league baseball players are freaked out about putting their health on the line to play a sport. People naturally feel more comfortable at home because they can control their environment. They know who has been in their house, when the last time it was cleaned was and who their family has been around. In a hotel, you just can’t be sure. So they’ll be in a bad spot as they depart St. Louis to spend at least seven nights in hotels — assuming that they stay at home the night before the series and fly back immediately after the last game. They’ll ride buses and have to go out in public whether they like it or not. I’m concerned that this arrangement is going to put the Cardinals in a hole early. And you can’t afford to be in a hole after 10 games when that represents one-sixth of your entire schedule.

If the organizers had any consideration at all, they would have had teams wade into the season gradually while players got used to the new normal and developed a routine. They should have had the clubs have one of their first two series at home and the other on the road. I’m sure there are a lot of players dreading the idea of playing eight of their first 11 games on the road. It’s not a matter of strategic advantage. It’s a matter of common decency.

With all that being said, the early season sacrifice doesn’t really earn St. Louis any breaks at the end of the season. While they’ll finish up with all four of their home games against Milwaukee in the last series of the year, three of the team’s last four series are on the road, including three games against the Brewers, four against the Pittsburgh Pirates and three against Mike Matheny and the Kansas City Royals. The Cardinals are really going to have to make hay during the middle of the year if they’re going to have a chance to win their division or make the playoffs. In recent years, it seems as if it’s a streaky team that runs hot and cold. There’s no chance for that this year. A club that loses eight out of 10 might just be buried before it could turn things around in the 2020 format.

It seems like everything that could go wrong this season either has — or soon will — find its way into the dumpster.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.