St. Louis has played on Sunday night in two straight weeks as part of ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” game, with another appearance slated for May 25, and Cardinals manager Mike Matheny is sick of having a different schedule than other teams.
Here’s what he told Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch:
That reply, “Consider yourself lucky”–that doesn’t mean anything to us. Our job is to win games, and I feel that this is something that affects us one way or another. Nobody is going to give us any sympathy on this but if you’re seeking an honest reply and what they keep telling us–consider it fortunate–it just doesn’t fit to us. …
It is a compliment that they want to see us on the national scene. (But) I don’t think it’s taken into consideration at all that it makes it harder for us. You get back at 4 a.m. and have to play the next day? You’re telling me that’s not going to affect you? We’re not looking for excuses, but it’s happened to us. You start watching guys get run down.
It’s certainly a fair point and one I’ve heard raised by prominent NFL teams that frequently play on Thursday, Sunday, and Monday nights instead of the usual Sunday afternoons, but like Matheny says it’s tough to feel sorry for a team when the reason their schedule is different is that they’re consistently so good and everyone wants to watch them in primetime.
Goold notes that the Cardinals’ upcoming May 25 appearance on “Sunday Night Baseball” is followed the next day by an afternoon game against the Yankees, so that’s exactly the type of quick turnaround Matheny is frustrated by.
