Why 154 games, as opposed to some different number? It’s a completely arbitrary number.
Yes, I know the history, and 154 was not an arbitrary number, but a function of the number of teams in each league. But in the current league structure, 154 is just a random number.
If you want to shorten the “championship season” (MLB’s term, not mine), start with the the schedule parameters you want, and let the total number of games fall out from that. Don’t pick a number for nostalgic reasons (that relatively few of us remember!) and kludge a schedule to fit that.