Major League Baseball’s Rivalry Weekend has come and gone, and it didn’t feel too much different than last weekend … or the weekend before that. What sounds like a fascinating three-day set of games is nothing more than a confusing, uninteresting marketing ploy. Evidently, the Red Sox and Braves are a rivalry on the same tier as the Cubs and White Sox.
Chances are that if you watched a game in recent days, you didn’t even know it was Rivalry Weekend unless an announcer offhandedly mentioned it. Such is the fun of such initiatives. But, as with everything, there are winners and losers, and we’re not just talking about who left the ballpark with an extra victory in their season total. Let’s start off with a player known for tormenting opponents regardless of the context or situation.
Winner: Shohei Ohtani
Remember when everyone was concerned about Ohtani’s bat? Good thing the Angels still exist.
Ohtani broke out of a slump with a hit on Friday night in his old Angel Stadium stomping grounds. Unsurprisingly, the former American League MVP gave Angels fans yet another reminder of what they’re missing when Ohtani went 2-for-4 with a double, a triple, and five RBIs in Saturday’s 15–2 rout.
With plenty of Dodgers fans in attendance, Ohtani added two walks and recorded his sixth steal. Not too bad, if we can say so ourselves.
Loser: Clay Holmes
It’s just the Mets’ luck that their best starting pitcher would get hit with a comebacker, leave the game over an inning later, and then learn he suffered a fractured right fibula.
Forget the Mets being losers here. Holmes owns a 2.39 ERA in nine starts and had positioned himself for a significant pay raise this offseason, assuming that he declined his 2027 player option. Now, Holmes might be tempted to simply stay in Queens and take the guaranteed $12 million entering his age-34 season.
Holmes’ injury could also scare playoff contenders into looking elsewhere for a starter at the trade deadline. There are few things worse than being a talented, proven All-Star stuck on a lowly team in September.
Winner: Streaming services
Baseball fans will hate hearing this, but the league is never reversing course on putting games behind paywalls. And, to the league’s credit, they don’t throw the Rockies, Nationals, and Angels on Apple TV or Peacock just to check a box.
Apple had the Yankees–Mets game on Friday night, and Peacock got the Marlins–Rays showdown on Sunday afternoon. At least the Rays lead the AL East and the Marlins are hovering around .500.
Loser: Baseball fans without streaming services
In fairness, this isn’t as bad as the NBA putting so many of its playoff games on Prime Video. That doesn’t change the fact that baseball fans without those subscriptions are out of luck, even if they live in that market.
There is no reason why the sport should have allowed and enabled games to be paywall-restricted even if you live 15 miles from the stadium. Major League Baseball’s issues with blackouts and game distribution are nothing new. Just once, though, it’d be refreshing for local fans to know that they can watch most, if not all, of their 162 games with just a cable package.
Winner: Phillies ownership
Kyle Schwarber is on pace to join the 60-home run club, and Bryce Harper has a .926 OPS. Suddenly, things don’t look so grim in Philadelphia anymore, now do they? More importantly, the Phillies clawed their way back to .500, and they’ve caught fire ahead of Memorial Day, when we start learning which teams are legitimate contenders.
Phillies management took a risk firing Rob Thomson in April, and the club proceeded to win 13 of Don Mattingly’s first 17 games. On the one hand, suggesting that those leading the Phillies should be “ecstatic” feels wrong, especially given Thomson’s reputation as a well-respected baseball lifer. But this is Mattingly’s show now, and the Phillies deserve credit for righting the ship.
Loser: Those all-in on Rivalry Weekend as an idea
The only time a league should need to market a rivalry is if the games in question will be on national television. Beneath the catchy name, what is Rivalry Weekend? Think about that for a second.
If Rivalry Weekend was exactly what it said on the tin, why didn’t the Yankees play the Red Sox? Shouldn’t the Phillies have played the Mets or Braves? Geographical locations don’t always tell the true story about rivalries. The Angels and Dodgers aren’t rivals. They share a region.
Meanwhile, the Yankees and Astros had a heated feud throughout the late 2010s and early 2020s. It didn’t matter that one team was from New York and the other played in Texas. Then again, if the TV ratings are a success, then why would Major League Baseball change things up? At least the Players’ Weekend jerseys are long gone.
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