As if the 2026 season hasn’t been crazy enough, Matthew Gross at our SB Nation Red Sox site Over The Monster detailed on Monday the weather forecast for the Boston area, which is currently calling for a major wind and rain storm, commonly known in those parts as a “nor’easter” because it generates strong northeast winds.
You can check out that article for some weather geekery, which is right up my alley, including some GIFs of forecast model rain maps which… well, if those turn out to be accurate,
the entire series could get delayed and/or postponed.
This Washington Post article (unlocked) notes how unusual it is to have a nor’easter in September:
Strong September nor’easters are rare.
Only about 1 percent of the strongest such storms have historically occurred in September, with most of them happening between December and March.
(There’s a graphic at the WaPo link that shows how exceptionally rare this nor’easter will be, presuming it happens as forecast.)
Anyway, here we are. And the OTM article points out that the stakes for the Cubs/Red Sox series are different for the two clubs:
The Red Sox will have no interest in playing these games at all, particularly with Payton Tolle, Sonny Gray, and Ranger Suarez set to go on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday against Cleveland before the weather moves in. That will serve as their final tune up before the rubber meets the road against the Yankees on Tuesday, September 29th.
The entire National League however is — in all likelihood — desperately going to need these games to be played to untangle their Wild Card puzzle.
It is mathematically possible for the Cubs to clinch the top wild card spot before Friday. They’d have to sweep the Marlins while the Dodgers sweep the Padres and the Phillies lose at least two of three to the Brewers.
Possible? Sure. Likely? Not really.
And so the Cubs would go into the weekend likely needing a win or two to secure home field in a Wild Card Series against either the Padres or Phillies. (For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to assume that the Diamondbacks will be eliminated from the wild card race before Friday.)
Matthew Gross suggests a doubleheader might have to be played on Monday, Sept. 28 and… well, no. There’s no way Major League Baseball would force two postseason-bound teams to do that when both of them would have to travel for a Tuesday Wild Card Series opener. Further, there’s no guarantee the rain would be out of the Boston area by Monday.
What I suspect we are looking at, then — and I’d think MLB is likely looking at this, too, as a contingency plan — is to move the games out of Fenway Park. Would that be fair to the Red Sox, losing three probable sellouts against the Cubs? No, but that’s probably preferable to having three games either a) played in deplorable conditions, b) delayed for hours, or c) postponed, creating a scheduling nightmare.
The weather forecast for Chicago over the next several days is pretty good — the relentless rain we’ve had in Chicago all summer has let up and the forecast is for mostly dry and pleasant conditions. But the league isn’t going to take Red Sox home games and make them essentially Cubs home games, so forget about any idea they could be relocated to Wrigley Field.
Instead, I suspect MLB is already considering moving some or all of this series to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. The Rays will be finishing their season this weekend in Philadelphia so the Trop would be available… that is, if this storm doesn’t wash things out at Citizens Bank Park. The Trop is a place the Red Sox are fairly familiar with; in fact, they just wrapped up a series there on Sunday.
If not the Trop, Daikin Park in Houston is available, as the Astros will be finishing their season on the West Coast against the A’s.
What are the odds that the Cubs and Red Sox will be playing this weekend somewhere other than Boston? Given the forecast, I’d have to think MLB is seriously thinking about moving the three games elsewhere. They’ve done so for other such games threatened by late-season storms — you surely remember the no-hitter Carlos Zambrano threw against the Astros in Milwaukee in 2008 in a game moved from Houston due to Hurricane Ike.
So I’ll be watching this closely. And as always, we await developments.
