ATLANTA — For business, logistical and maybe game tactical reasons, the Braves didn't want to change the start time, date or location of their series with the Mets, despite forecasts that made Wednesday night's game iffy and Thursday night's final game of the three-game series even less likely.
MLB could have ignored the wishes of both teams and forced different logistics for the game, but it didn't.
The game, scheduled for 7:20 p.m. ET on Wednesday, is still scheduled to be played, despite heavy rain falling in the area as of early afternoon.
And now, with Hurricane Helen looming over the city, the nightmare scenario of both teams having to play a doubleheader on Monday to determine who will make the playoffs, the day after the regular season ends and the day before the playoffs begin, has become more likely.
We may know all the teams in the playoffs and where they rank after Sunday's games, but here are some scary possibilities that could happen right now.
— The Mets and Braves will play 18 innings in Atlanta on Monday, then may have to fly to Los Angeles, San Diego or Milwaukee for a best-of-three series on consecutive days, where the playoffs begin the next day. That means 18 innings at full throttle on Monday, a flight (likely to the West Coast) and exhausted players reconditioning for a playoff series. And at least one of the higher seeds (or more, depending on the seeding) will have to wait until the night before to find out who they're playing.
Either the Mets or the Braves will end the weekend confident of a playoff berth, but neither the other team nor the Diamondbacks will. The Mets and Braves will have to play a game or two on Monday, and the already-playoff-clinching teams will have no incentive to bring out their best players or play at their best, while the Diamondbacks will watch helplessly from afar.
Remember, this whole problem started, in a way, when the game was rained out at Truist Park on April 10. The Mets didn't think the game needed to be postponed, but they didn't want to play a single game on a mutual day off during the season and asked that a game be added when they returned to Atlanta again.
Unfortunately for all involved, it has now overlapped with Helen, and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency on Tuesday to prepare for the storm, which is forecast to start bringing heavy rain on Wednesday and get more intense on Thursday, making it unlikely the game can be held.
MLB had hoped that even with the interruption, games could be played on Wednesday, anticipating that in a worst-case scenario, one game might have to be played on Monday.
If Monday's game does not have playoff implications, it would be up to commissioner Rob Manfred to decide whether both teams are required to return to complete the 162-game schedule, something playoff teams would obviously not want to do.
Spokespeople for MLB, the Braves and the Mets declined to comment on how they got to this point or what the next steps might be.
But according to insiders, the Braves essentially expected big attendance for all three games (40,103 attended Truist Park for Tuesday's series opener, which Atlanta won 5-1) and didn't want to go through the logistics of abandoning gates or moving security, concession workers and other personnel to other dates or start times.
For example, the Braves will start their home games at 7:20 p.m., and never earlier, because of issues with mobility of people entering and leaving the Battery area after normal working hours and before games.
Both teams had a shared day off on Monday. The weather was good enough to play a doubleheader on Tuesday. The Mets floated the idea of an earlier start time on Wednesday, before the forecast worsened. The most drastic move could have been to move the series to an empty stadium not threatened by the storm, such as Texas.
But MLB didn't force the change. Both teams approved the change, which made it much easier for the league to make the decision to move Tuesday's Rays-Tigers game from 6:40 p.m. to 1:10 p.m. The Rays also had the advantage of not being in a championship race and the two teams not being in the same division.
The Mets and Braves are in the NL East and are battling for a playoff spot, but they don't have much love for each other, with either one potentially missing out. So the Mets are certainly questioning the move to allow NL Cy Young Award candidate Chris Sale, coming off a game in which his fastball average velocity dropped by 2 mph, to get an extra day of rest before starting Wednesday, allowing him to start on Monday on normal rest.
But with concerns that Wednesday's game could start or finish, no one knows how long the starting pitchers will be able to pitch. Plus, if Wednesday and Thursday are rained out, Sale and Max Fried, who started against the Royals over the weekend, would be unavailable for Monday's game against Atlanta.
But the Braves don't have to leave Atlanta for their final series of the regular season, or even Monday's game if necessary. The Mets had planned a way to escape the storm to get to Milwaukee for the weekend but faced the possibility of having to return to Atlanta. All of these would be competitive disadvantages.
