Players: “More afternoon tilts, please.”

Thursday, the Arizona Diamondbacks played well into the night in New York, and didn’t arrive in Denver for the next series until 5:30 Friday morning. In their first 16 innings against the Rockies -- nine Friday and seven Saturday -- the D-backs scored one run.

Eric Chavez and David Ross think there’s some connection there. Via Nick Piecoro:

So does Chavez want mandatory day games on getaway day?

“Unless you’re within like an hour and a half of a flight,” he said. “I know New York was going to Toronto. But we went into extra innings and that’s kind of why you would want to do that, in case a game does go to extra innings and a team can get in there at a decent time. We haven’t been this flat all year. To me, if you want to put your finger on it, to me that’s it.”

--snip--

“We definitely don’t want to make excuses, and it’s not an excuse, but it’s definitely something that we’ll talk about in the next agreement,” Ross said, referring to the collective bargaining agreement.

Some years ago, I was on a panel with Mariners catcher Dan Wilson. Wilson was a good player, gracious and articulate, and a pillar of the community. Probably still is all of those things except the player part. At one point, there was a question from the audience about the length of the season, and what might be done about that. Here’s roughly how the conversation proceeded ...

Wilson: Yeah, I wish the season were shorter but I’m not sure how that can happen.

Neyer: Well, what about scheduling six doubleheaders? Do that and you’ve shortened the season by a week.

Wilson: Sounds good to me.

Neyer: Even if that means less revenue for the clubs, and a tiny bit less for the players?

Wilson: No.

My point being that the schedule as it exists today is meant to serve two masters: Revenues, and The Players’ Tender Sensibilities. With Revenues usually leading the way, since Revenues are enjoyed by both the owners and the players.

Hell, everybody wants to play more day baseball, because that means you get to go home earlier. The problem is that not as many people come to the ballpark or watch on television.

Now, at this point the owners are raking in such ridiculously large amounts of money that if they say, “Sorry, we can’t play more day games because of Revenues,” the players might say, “That’s a good one, now stop making jokes and just do this one thing for us.”

Which is to say that everything’s negotiable. We’ll see how important this is to the guys, really.