Something relatively new to many MLB teams was done twice in as many days last week.
What am I talking about? Two different teams moved starting times from night to afternoon because bad weather was expected and they wanted to get the games in.
First, the Mets last Wednesday at Citi Field:
Tomorrow’s game against Chicago (AL) has been moved to 1:10 p.m. due to weather. Gates will open at 12:10 p.m. and parking lots will open at 11:40 a.m.https://t.co/UUPUroXFJr
— New York Mets (@Mets) May 27, 2025
Note the timestamp on that social media post — that’s 5:15 p.m. ET Tuesday, May 27, for a game that was to start about 26 hours from that time (7:10 p.m. ET on Wednesday, May 28).
The Orioles did the same thing with their Friday game, except with even less notice:
Again, note the time stamp. That’s 9:22 a.m. ET last Friday, May 30, for a game that was to begin that night at 7:05 p.m., less than 10 hours to game time.
I can’t begin to tell you how good an idea this is. In both cases, major storms were forecast to hit in the evening, Wednesday in New York and Friday in Baltimore, and in fact, those forecasts were correct. Both games were completed with no delays. Had the games been started at the original scheduled times. they either would have had to be postponed or would have had significant weather delays.
(It is interesting, but coincidental, that both these games involved the White Sox as the visiting team. Draw your own conclusions.)
I think you know what I’m getting at here. You might recall the game at Wrigley Field Sunday, April 20 against the Diamondbacks. Scheduled for a 1:20 p.m. CT start, it didn’t begin until 3:08 p.m. CT due to rain. I wrote this article the next day, in which I suggested MLB could have…
[made] an announcement Saturday that they were pushing back the starting time Sunday to 3:05, or maybe even 4:05. That would have meant everyone could have come to the ballpark later, including gameday staff, who wound up being paid overtime because of the lengthy rain delay
And in fact, this is exactly what they did in New York and Baltimore — and with even less notice than I had suggested MLB and the Cubs do.
Perhaps you’re saying, “But Al, what about all the people who had tickets to these games and couldn’t make the changed time?”
Here’s a clip from the Mets/White Sox game [VIDEO].
The announced number of tickets sold for that game was 34,021. It’s hard to tell for sure, but I’d say maybe half that many were in the house at Citi Field. It is, of course, impossible to tell how many would have shown up that evening with forecasts of storms.
Here’s a clip from the Orioles/White Sox game [VIDEO].
The announced number of tickets sold for that game was 22,108. From that clip, it looks like most of the fans did show up in Baltimore. Of course, that game time (4:30) was closer to the 7:10 scheduled start than the game in New York, which was moved up six hours.
My point, as you can imagine: I’d love to see the Cubs do this, even on short notice, when weather forecasts are definitive about storms or other bad weather during a scheduled game time. I’d think players would like that better, too, rather than start and stop play and sit around not knowing when play will resume.
The Cubs did do this a couple of times in April 2022. Their April 20, 2022 game at Wrigley Field against the Rays was moved up from 7:05 p.m. CT to 5:30 p.m. CT about eight hours before game time. Later that same week, Friday, April 20, 2022, the Cubs shifted a 1:20 p.m. CT start to 7:05 p.m. CT due to weather. In that case, permission had to be granted by the city of Chicago for an extra night game beyond the number allowed, but in those cases such permission is routinely granted.
I hope what happened in New York and Baltimore last week becomes routine across baseball. This doesn’t affect that many games and while granting that it would inconvenience some ticket holders, it’s much better in my view to play the games without interruption than to keep to a rigid schedule and perhaps play with one or more delays.
Good on the Mets and Orioles for being proactive. I hope the Cubs will consider doing the same.
Poll
What should be done with MLB games where a rain/storm forecast is known ahead of time, and is nearly 100 percent certain?
0%
Move the game time up (or back) to avoid the bad weather
(0 votes)
0%
Play the game as scheduled; if delays happen, they happen
(0 votes)
0%
Postpone the game and play on a different day
(0 votes)
0%
Something else (leave in comments)
(0 votes)
0 votes total