The Rays Tank: Interleague Edition

Today is the start of interleague play, the silly money grab instituted by in 1997. Watching the Rays play a team, lets pick the Nationals, is no more exciting than if they were to play the A's another series. It's especially less exciting when American League pitchers have to hit. By less exciting I mean brutally painful. The Rays open up with a three game series against the Braves then don't face another National League team until June 8th when they travel to Miami.

Besides the lack of excitement Interleague also messes up an already unbalanced schedule. The Rays won't play the same teams as the rest of their division, but the games will count toward crowning a division champion. It's said every year, but I'd love for baseball to get rid of interleague play and divisions entirely, going to a completely balanced schedule. That will never happen, though.

• Over at Fangraphs our man Bradley Woodrum has a nice post about Rich Thompson and the dream of every kid that ever put on cleats.
• Can the Orioles keep it up? Jay Jaffe takes a look.
• We can never, ever, ever, ever have enough talk about defensive shifts and Jeff Sullivan is happy to oblige.
• Bees! Ah!