New schedule says Phillies will play baseball in 2017

The 2016 season is rapidly coming to a close, and let’s all together, in one voice, respond to that:

THANK GOD.

I’ll miss them when they’re gone, but I think we can all agree that the second half of the 2016 season has been more misery than joy. So it’s obviously time to start thinking about 2017, and Major League Baseball has made it much easier for us to do that by releasing the 2017 schedule today.

Let’s start at the beginning: the Phillies once again start their season in Cincinnati against the Reds, which is great for me since I live in Dayton now. They again start the season on a Monday, which is fine, but they again have an off day between their first and second game, which is monumentally stupid. “Here, thirsty fans, here’s some baseball! NOW WAIT AN EXTRA 24 HOURS BEFORE YOU GET ANY MORE HAHAHAHA WE’RE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL AND WE DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT YOU!”

Anyway.

The Phillies face non-NL East teams for six games in April. In fact, after the opening series against the Reds, they spend the next two weeks facing only the Mets and the Nationals, both at home and on the road. So get ready to get really sick of the Mets and the Nats super quickly!

Here are some highlights from 2017’s 162 games.

• The Seattle Mariners come to visit in May, and the Phillies return the favor during their first big West Coast road trip in June.
• The Phillies also see the Texas Rangers in interleague play, so get ready to have some COLE! HAMELS! FEELINGS! I for one am not ready.
• The Phillies hit the West Coast a few times: first at the end of April for a quick jaunt to Los Angeles to see the Dodgers, then at the end of June when they hit Arizona and Seattle, and then for TWO WEEKS in August when they visit the Angels, Giants, and Padres.
• Seriously, two full weeks doing West Coast-ish games, separated by a four-game series at home against the Mets. It’s 11 months away and I’m already dreading it.
• The Phillies don’t visit the new, “improved,” completely unnecessary, fan-hating, stupidly expensive, redundant Braves stadium, SunTrust Park, until June. Yeah, I don’t care how great that park looks. I’ve written about how stupid it is over on Big League Stew (here I talk about the parking mess, and here is where I take shots at recently defeated county commissioner who approved the deal) so I won’t bore you. But it sucks and it’s stupid.
• More interleague madness! They host the Oakland Athletics in September, and right after that the Dodgers come to Citizens Bank Park. That breaks up what has historically been a solid month of NL East games. Thanks, two weeks of Nats and Mets to start the season!

Also, the Astros visit in July, but I don’t super care about that. No bullet point for them!

What are you guys looking forward to? Let us know in the comments!