Baseball Basics: Regular Season and Team Management
The regular season of Major League Baseball begins in early April and continues till the last week of September. There are 30 teams divided in six divisions and each time plays the other in series of three-games and four-games over the stretch of the season.
Each team is required to play 162 games over the six months.
The series are played on consecutive days meaning that a three-game series would ideally be played on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with a washed-out game postponed to a later date and scheduled as a double-header when the next series is due. This means that
the team would play two consecutive games on the same day.
The double-header is usually hard for the pitching outfit for either team as they have minimal time for rest between both games and there is high probability of a key pitcher getting injured due to fatigue. However, if five innings have been completed in
the game, a winner will be declared.
Every team usually has a week of home-games before the team takes off for two to three series of “road” fixtures i.e. playing on opposition’s ballparks. The rotational system allows home advantage to shift between the two teams and by the end of the season;
both teams in contest would have played an equal amount of games on the road and at home.
Major League Baseball has two broad divisions under it, namely the American League and the National League. As pointed out earlier, all teams are required to play each other over the entire season but majority of the games are played by teams within their
own League. This would mean that a team in the National League will play majority of its games with other teams in the NL with a few games with their AL counterparts.
The aim of each team is to make it to the postseason at least for which it is necessary to top their respective division. However, there is a Wild Card system in place too which allows the second-best runner-up to qualify for the playoffs. Technically, this
would be the fourth team in the League standings. If there is a tie for any position, a one-game playoff is played between the teams who have been tied to determine the eventual qualifier. The home-advantage is decided through a coin toss.
There is a minor distinction as to how the game is played in the AL and the NL. In AL, the rule of designated hitter is used which allows the batting side to bring in a hitter to bat for the pitcher and increase the depth of its batting line-up. The DH does
not have to field when his team is fielding. This rule is not applicable in the NL. However, substitutions are allowed in both Leagues enabling teams to change players during any point of the game. A player once substituted cannot return to the game.
If a hitter is substituted, the new player is called a pinch hitter while if a runner is substituted, the player coming in is termed as a pinch runner.
Teams are allowed to improve their rosters during the season through midseason trades. Players can be traded for other players or for cash equivalent, depending on the quality of players in the minor leagues and team requirements.
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