Major League Baseball’s regular season was supposed to end Sunday. But Mother Nature intervened.
The approach of Hurricane Helene led to the postponement of the scheduled Wednesday and Thursday games in Atlanta between the New York Mets and host Braves, contests that have been rescheduled for a doubleheader on Monday — a day after the regular season was supposed to end.
So because those teams are in a fierce three-way battle with Arizona for the National League’s final two wild-card playoff slots, with the Mets and Diamondbacks just above the cut line and the Braves a game out of the last spot through Thursday, the makeup contests Monday could overshadow what was intended to be the closing-day schedule on Sunday.
As of Thursday afternoon, no national telecasts for the Monday games had been announced, but they could be added.
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What is known is that the Cardinals again will be playing for nothing of postseason consequence on their closing day Sunday when they are in San Francisco. They realistically have been out of playoff contention for weeks before being mathematically ousted last Friday.
Elsewhere, before the hurricane-related postponements, Sunday had shaped up as a big day in the final push for playoff qualification and positioning. It still could have impact, and MLB Network plans to go all out with coverage while ESPN is set to jump in for a smaller block.
All Sunday contests are set to begin at about the same time, from 2:05-2:20 p.m. (St. Louis time), a system MLB has been using since 2015 for competitive balance. A team in contention no longer can back in based on the results of games played earlier in the day, as teams in the past had done to rest key players then for the upcoming playoffs.
MLB Network begins its coverage at 1 p.m. with “MLB Tonight,†which will include live cut-ins to games and events of note, as well as analysis and commentary in an eight-hour marathon.
ESPN airs “Baseball Tonight†from 4-6 p.m., which also will include cut-ins, analysis and commentary.