Hurricane Helene has postponed two Braves/Mets games, and that creates a mess for postseason contenders

This could have been handled better by MLB.

The Braves and Mets, as well as the Diamondbacks, are in a tight fight for National League wild-card spots.

Unfortunately for the Braves and Mets, Hurricane Helene is headed right for the Atlanta area. That led the Braves to postpone both Wednesday night’s and Thursday night’s games between the two teams and tentatively reschedule them for a doubleheader at Truist Park on Monday — if it’s even still needed to determine playoff seeding by then.

This was a mess that could have been avoided, writes Joel Sherman in the New York Post:

For reasons of business, logistics and perhaps gamesmanship, the Braves did not want to shift start times, days or locations for their series against the Mets despite forecasts that made it iffy to play Wednesday night and even less likely to play a three-game series finale Thursday night.

MLB could have overridden any desire of either team and forced different logistics for the games and did not.

Thus, now the teams and MLB are in the path of a different kind of storm that will raise questions about fairness, logistics and more — and potentially create a bunch of troubling, embarrassing scenarios Monday.

There’s a perfectly good park in Houston that is available today; the teams could have played a doubleheader there. Same thing with American Family Field in Milwaukee — no games there today, and usually when MLB moves games to a neutral site, they want an indoor stadium.

Instead, those two games will be played Monday — maybe. In the meantime, the Braves will host the Royals this weekend, beginning Friday evening, and by then, forecasts say, it should be dry at Truist Park. Meanwhile, the Mets will be in Milwaukee — see how easy this would have been? — finishing their season against the Brewers. The Brewers have nothing left to play for but pride, as they are locked into the third seed as the third-best division winner and will host a wild-card series next week, where they could wind up playing… the Mets!

What a mess, and it could have been solved easily if MLB had stepped in earlier and pushed the Braves to move these games. Now, you might say that would cost the Braves money, and that’s correct — but MLB could easily help make them whole for any financial losses, and the Braves would surely pocket all the money from relocated games.

Here’s another reason the teams are in this situation, from Sherman’s article:

Remember that in some ways this trouble all began on April 10 when a game was rained out at Truist Park that the Mets did not think needed to be postponed.

The Mets, however, did not want to return for a single game on a mutual off day during the season and asked that it be tacked onto their next series in Atlanta.

Oh. Isn’t that what mutual off days are for, in part? To make up games like this? Here’s where the balanced schedule makes things like this difficult, because if the unbalanced schedule were still in effect, the Mets would have visited Atlanta three times this year instead of two and there likely would have been more opportunities to make up games.

There are too many permutations here to discuss, but here’s the bottom line:

The commissioner has the final call, but right now:

If both the Mets and Braves know their fate through Sunday, MLB is likely to cancel the doubleheader.

The games also are likely to be canceled if only seeding is at stake and both teams know they are in the playoffs — the Braves lead the season series to date and would be awarded the higher seed.

If everything is settled after the opener, the nightcap likely would be canceled.

Here’s a bit more:

We had a spirited discussion here earlier this week when I mentioned the long rain delay at Wrigley Field Sunday and thought the Cubs could have been proactive, pushing back the starting time so that gameday staff, players and fans didn’t have to show up early and sit around during a delay. The Cubs have done this before on multiple occasions. Here’s one from a 2022 press release:

The original starting time of that game was 1:20 p.m. CT. The press release was time-stamped 10:54 a.m. CT. That game was on a Friday, so the Cubs had to get permission from the city of Chicago to play a night game — nevertheless, they did that and got the game time switched before the gates would have opened for a 1:20 game. (The Friday night restriction, as I have previously written, is ridiculous and should be repealed.)

Here’s another one from last year:

The weather was so bad that day that the 4:05 game didn’t start until 6 p.m.

Which brings me to the point I was trying to make here about Sunday’s game. Some commenters thought that ESPN’s exclusive Sunday night window would prevent the Cubs from pushing a game to 4:05, but here’s an example of exactly that being done just a year ago. When weather is an issue, MLB’s TV partners generally grant exceptions to those exclusive windows.

So — yes, I said earlier this week that the Cubs could have moved Sunday’s starting time as early as Friday, since the forecast was known that early (and turned out to be accurate). Perhaps that’s too early — but the day before, or early on the morning of the game, these sorts of things can and do happen. The Tigers, who have roared into playoff contention, did that earlier this week:

There’s an example of a starting time being moved UP several hours, made the evening before the game. Yes, this could inconvenience some fans, but note that the Tigers did give a ticket exchange opportunity — and they have important home games this weekend as they push for a postseason spot.

In conclusion, I would like to see MLB and its teams be more proactive about moving game times when weather forecasts indicate such things would be helpful, instead of dithering (as they did in the case of the two Braves/Mets games, which could have been moved to another city) or sticking to a start time they know isn’t going to happen because of many hours of inclement weather (as happened last Sunday at Wrigley Field).

Get it done, Rob Manfred.