The Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs took action before the late September Nor'easter soaked Massachusetts. The Cubs visited Fenway Park for a doubleheader on Friday, moving Sunday's game to the afternoon to avoid the dangerous weather. At first, the two teams were expected to play game three on Saturday and get an extra day of rest before the Wild Card series.
Instead, the New York Yankees get the rest, and more of it. New York City is also being batted by heavy rain and high winds, which MLB expected. Yet, the league made no preparations to ensure the Yankees would play their full schedule. The season's final game between the Baltimore Orioles and Yankees at Yankee Stadium was canceled because New York doesn't have a roof to close.
The game will not be made up on Monday. The Yankees will go into the Wild Card series on three days of rest because their Saturday game was also canceled.
The game between the Yankees and Orioles meant nothing. New York had already clinched its playoff spot and Baltimore was already mathematically eliminated. But after the Cubs blew both games of their Friday doubleheader in Boston, game 162 didn't mean anything for them either.
MLB hands Yankees three days of rest before upcoming Wild Card rematch against Red Sox
There were available ballparks with roofs that the Yankees and Orioles could've used to play the final game. The Houston Astros' Daikin Park is available because the Astros closed out their season in Sacramento. But the league couldn't possibly inconvenience the Yankees to make sure everyone goes into the postseason on equal footing — that would simply be too much.
Now that New York's bullpen and bats have three days of rest compared to Boston's one, the Red Sox must to show up to Yankee Stadium more determined than ever. Every matchup between the two teams is tough, but now the Red Sox are at a clear disadvantage, the stakes are even higher.
The Red Sox can hope that three days of rest is too many for the Yankees. Maybe the long break takes hitters out of their routines and off their game for the Wild Card opener, though it very well could have the opposite affect.
MLB had as much notice of bad weather in New York as it did in Boston, but only one team has to go through all the effort of playing a meaningless game — a game the league knew was meaningless before either the Red Sox or Cubs left Boston on Friday. If the bad weather keeps the Red Sox from flying north in a timely manner after the game, it'll be yet another wrench in their schedule that the Yankees were privileged to avoid.
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