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This is awesome: Every game on the final day of the MLB regular season will start at the same time

Yadier Molina, Daniel Descalso

St. Louis Cardinals’ Yadier Molina, left, and Daniel Descalso celebrate after the Cardinals’ baseball game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014, in Phoenix. The Cardinals clinched their second straight NL Central title before the first pitch and closed out the regular season with a 1-0 win over the Diamondbacks. The Cardinals were already in the postseason entering the day and celebrated the division title in the dugout minutes before first pitch, when Cincinnati’s 4-1 win over Pittsburgh was announced. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

AP

Well, this is awesome. According to Bill Shakin of the Los Angeles Times, MLB has scheduled every game on the final day of the regular season to start at the same time. The idea with this new little wrinkle is to ramp up the drama leading into the playoffs:

“If a game impacts another game, they’re all occurring at the same time, so no team would be put into a lame-duck situation because their fate already had been decided by an earlier result,” said Tony Pettiti, MLB chief operating officer.

“If we do have games coming down to the wire, we want to make sure we maximize that day.”


All games on Sunday, October 4 will start at 3 p.m. ET.

In addition to all the drama, excitement, and nail-biting which will surely commence on that afternoon, it might also change how some teams approach things. The Pirates lost on the final day of the regular season last year, which clinched the NL Central for the Cardinals. The Cardinals had a later start and were able to scratch Adam Wainwright at the last minute and rest him for Game 1 of the NLDS against the Dodgers. Teams won’t have the luxury to wait on decisions like that anymore. You’re going to have to go for it.

It’s hard to see a negative with this idea. If anything, the hardest part will be trying to keep up with everything that might be going on. Of course, that will be a fun problem to have for baseball fans. Bring on the chaos.

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