Before we dive into the chaos and unpredictability of the weather, let’s start with what we know about the schedule. After 24 of MLB’s 30 teams have an off day on Monday, the Red Sox, Yankees, and Phillies are all scheduled to play at home, everyday, from Tuesday, September 22nd through the final day of the regular season on Sunday, September 27th. Here are the details:
- The Red Sox will host the Cleveland Guardians and Chicago Cubs (three games each).
- The Yankees will host the Rays for four games (double header on Tuesday), and the Orioles for three games.
- The Phillies will host the Brewers for three games, and then the Rays for three games.
Do you see the potential problem here? All of these games will either definitely have to be played, or there’s a pretty solid chance
they’ll have to be played. And once the sun rises on Tuesday, there are no off-days to make them up without spilling into the Monday before the Wild Card series, which is supposed to start September 29th.
Looking at the standings, the Rays find themselves four games up on the Yankees, and will hold the tiebreaker on them as long as they don’t get swept in New York. Or to put it another way, they can’t clinch the tiebreaker over the Yankees unless they win a game in New York next week. Well, what if not enough games are played for them to grab a win by Thursday night? They might have to come back to New York on Monday the 28th to wrap up the division.
Meanwhile, in Boston, the Red Sox should find themselves locked into the second Wild Card spot by the time any potential chaos ensues, but it’s a very different story for their opponents. The Guardians are one game up on the White Sox for the AL Central division and just two games up on the first team that could knock them completely out of the playoffs, and the Cubs find themselves in a three-way, 85-69 tie with the Phillies and Padres for all three Wild Card spots in the NL. So yeah, those games are probably going to have to be played.
And speaking of the Phillies, both of their opponents also might need every last game counted as the Brewers are just two games up on the Dodgers for the No. 1 seed in the NL, and the aforementioned Rays could end up close enough to the Yankees with any stumble that they also get swept up in the storm.
So with all of those details on the table, let’s take a look at what last night’s GFS model is showing in a loop that runs from Tuesday morning through Friday night:
Rob Manfred probably just had a stroke watching that play out. Maybe something from the European family of models has better news? Here’s that loop from last night’s run, only this time we run it from Tuesday morning all the way through Sunday night.
Notice how it’s completely different but just as problematic? Well, that kind of sums up what we’re facing here. There’s a very strong probability of rainouts next week (I can say that with confidence), but the details of where and when those will occur remain murky.
How does a dynamic like that happen? Because in this situation we’re not really tracking a low pressure storm center. Instead, we’re tracking a gigantic high pressure over southeast Canada that’s going to block up everything and lock our rainy pattern in place. Let’s take a much broader view of a run from these two models again, but in this loop, just keep your eyes on Canada from Quebec to the Maritimes
Same loop, only this time with the other model:
See the problem here? At this point, we can confidently say we’re going to have an enormous blocking pattern in place next week. That colossal high is going to play the role of a brick wall any way you slice it. But the exact size, strength, spread, speed, position, intensity and orientation of that high are all up for grabs, and until those details are ironed out, the models will keep spitting out wildly different results regarding which games get rained out.
In general though, a blocking high and a developing low will work together to create a persistent onshore flow over the northeast, I-95 corridor for several days next week, and there’s very few ways that doesn’t end up translating into a large, slow moving storm by the time we’re trying to wrap up the regular season.
Does that mean rain in just Boston and the Red Sox and Cubs have to play into Monday the 28th to determine the Cubs’ Wild Card position? Maybe. Does that mean a retrograding low where both Tampa and Yankees lose their games and can’t get the division decided? It’s possible.
All I know for sure right now is two things:
1) The Red Sox can add even more chaos to this equation if they beat the Rays again today and drag them a little closer to New York in the standings.
2) I’ll be keeping you updated here at Over The Monster as the situation evolves in the coming days.
