Baseball's 2011 postseason sked creates more juggling for networks

Major League Baseball released its postseason schedule today, and in doing so revealed that it was eliminating non-travel off days that had been created to give more games primetime exposure on TV.

The marginally compressed schedule will mean that there are more games played on the same day in the two rounds before the World Series. For example, there could be as many as four games on Oct. 4, a Tuesday.

The MLB playoffs will begin on a Friday (Sept. 30) for the first time since the 1915 World Series. Division series games for both the American League and National League will air on TBS, with its sister networks picking up any overflow or simultaneous games.

TBS also has the National League Championship series, while Fox has the ALCS and then, starting Oct. 19, the World Series. A potential Game 7 of the World Series is scheduled for Oct. 27, a Thursday.