Baseball is already stressful enough without the weather trying to ruin our entire season. Now we are looking at a schedule that looks like a total disaster. A nor’easter is headed for the Boston area this weekend, and it is messing with everything. Major League Baseball is scrambling to finish the Chicago Cubs series before Sunday. The plan is so messy that the final game might not even be played at Fenway Park.
The schedule is already shifting. According to Yahoo Sports, the teams are playing a doubleheader this Friday. The game originally set for Sunday was moved up to Friday. The second contest of Friday’s doubleheader was rescheduled from 5:05 pm CT to 4:35 pm CT. There is even talk about moving the Saturday game to Tampa. Since the Tampa Bay Rays are not in town, the teams could play at Tropicana Field to avoid the storm.
The missed chance to play in Chicago
It is honestly frustrating because there was a much better way to handle this. We could have just moved the whole series to Wrigley Field. It would have been simple. The teams would play one game each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Both clubs seemed fine with that plan. Matt Spiegel on 104.3 The Score stated that the Red Sox “green-lit” the idea of playing in Chicago.
The Cubs would have even paid the Red Sox back for the trouble. It would have kept the games on a normal schedule before the Wild Card Round starts. But the plan died because the Phillies and Padres did not like it. They thought it would hurt their chances for better seeding in the Wild Card race. So, instead of a clean series in Chicago, we get this travel nightmare.
Chaos right before the postseason
This is just bad for the players. The Red Sox players even showed up to Fenway with their bags packed for a potential move, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Playing a doubleheader on Friday and then potentially flying to Florida is exhausting. It is a lot of extra work right when the team needs to focus on the playoffs. I hate seeing this kind of instability right before the most important games of the year.
The rotation is also looking weird. Alex Gamboa and Brayan Bello have been named the starters for the first two games by the team. It is still unclear if Gamboa will act as an opener for Jake Bennett.
