“Welcome to Major League Baseball, where we just make shit up as we go along!”

That’s what the tour guide would tell our group, if we lived in a world where lying was not allowed, kind of like that Jim Carrey movie from back in the day.

For further proof that MLB is flying by the seat of their pants, the league and players union agreed this week to play seven-inning doubleheaders, replicating the model used in the minors.

Put aside the baseball purist thing for a minute and just consider the following:

  • we’re already playing the 2020 season
  • two teams are currently inactive because of COVID concerns
  • this rule change was discussed previously, but is expected to go into effect tomorrow, so I guess they couldn’t get around to buttoning up their shit before the season actually started

Writes Jeff Passan at ESPN:

With a number of doubleheaders expected to take place because of rescheduled games due to current and potential coronavirus outbreaks as well as weather-related postponements, shortening doubleheaders to seven innings was a compromise that came together quickly, sources said.

However, there are no doubleheaders currently scheduled in the majors after Saturday’s Toronto Blue Jays–Philadelphia Phillies twin bill was postponed because two Phillies staffers tested positive for COVID-19.

I think we’d all agree that we’re dealing with extenuating circumstances here. We’re adjusting as we go along because we’ve never dealt with a global pandemic before. We should expect things to be rocky, and imperfect, and adjustments will have to made along the way.

But surely this was something they could have ironed out before the season began. You knew you might have postponements and rescheduled games in a clumpy and tighter time frame, so if you had a little bit of foresight, you would have addressed this before opening day.

“Foresight” – not really a Rob Manfred strong suit.