Strange couple of days

Because Major League Baseball is married to its preset postseason schedule, Tuesday and Wednesday marked the first days without games since the final day of the All-Star break in mid-July.

And it's strange. Well for me it is.

For the first time basically in six months, there's no reason to click on ESPN.com or MLB.com to check the West Coast scores.

No checking the standings to see how close this team is to that team or how the wild-card race looks.

Strange, strange, strange feeling. But maybe there's a reason for this.

And apparently that reason is to prepare people like me for the end of the season later this month.