If you love inter-league play, as I do, you have to acknowledge that it's totally unfair. Consider a wild card race between the Mets and Cardinals. New York draws two sets against the Yankees while St. Louis enjoys a home-and-home vacation against Kansas City. Those six games could easily decide a playoff spot.
On the other hand, one argument commonly heard against inter-league play is idiotic: that it delivers desultory match-ups like Washington-Oakland and San Diego-Cleveland. As if the intra-league contests pitting Washington against Diego and Oakland against Cleveland are barn burners.
The positive about inter-league play is that fans get to see great players from the other league first-hand and that all those great inter-league rivalry games (Cubs-White Sox, Yanks-Mets, Reds-Indians, Astros-Rangers, Angels-Dodgers, etc.) get played. That doesn't mean that every inter-league affair has to include some inherent geographic competition, but how else can we get headlines like "Braves School Indians," "Giants Doff Red Sox," "Tigers Devour Phillies" and "Angels Deny Padres"?
It also stands to reason that NL teams have a greater advantage when forcing the AL pitchers to bat than AL teams enjoy when NL clubs insert a DH into the lineup. In today's game against the Mets, Phil Hughes batted for the first time in his entire professional career. That's seven years without swinging a bat since high school. However, results have not particularly borne out the NL advantage. Junior Circuit teams have dominated inter-league play and their pitchers have hit about as poorly as their NL counterparts.
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There are a lot of big reasons why the Mets are defending their manager and the Yankees are World Series favorites, but a few small reasons showed up in one inning of their game today.
In the top of the inning, David Wright got a key two-out RBI. On a subsequent RBI single Wright snubbed the rally by running into an out at third. Did that cost them more runs? Only the shadow knows.
In the Yankees' next ups, pitcher Mike Pelfrey induced two pop-ups and then walked the #8 hitter with the pitcher on deck. Not only did that give the Yanks the opportunity to lead-off the next inning with Derek Jeter, but Phil Hughes pushed Pelfrey to an extra six pitches before grounding out.
It may or may not have affected the outcome, but in general, teams that give themselves those little advantages win more, and vice versa.
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