Impact of Hurricane Helene on MLB: Crucial Braves-Mets series postponed due to storm

Hurricane Helene is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on Thursday. In the meantime, heavy rains and damaging winds are expected in parts of the Southeast, including Atlanta, the site of this week’s key MLB series between the Braves and New York Mets.

The Braves and Mets are battling for NL wild-card spots and were scheduled to finish their three-game series on Thursday. Atlanta won the first game on Tuesday, 5-1. However, on Wednesday afternoon, Major League Baseball announced that the final two games of the series had been postponed because of the storm.

To make up the deficit, the teams will play a doubleheader in Atlanta on Monday. Monday is the last day off before the AL and NL wild-card series begin on Tuesday, as the regular season ends on Sunday. The Mets will be in Milwaukee Friday-Sunday, while the Braves will host Kansas City over the weekend.

As of Wednesday, the Mets hold one of the three NL wild-card spots, while the Braves are half a game out of a playoff spot. Monday’s doubleheader could be decisive in the wild-card race, although the games “will only be played if they are important to one or both teams for playoff purposes.”

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency on Monday, two days before Helene was upgraded to a hurricane. Hurricane Helene is expected to be a Category 3 storm when it makes landfall, bringing winds in excess of 110 mph (177 kph) and “life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding across much of Florida and the southeastern United States,” according to the National Hurricane Center.

Atlanta is expecting thunderstorms and heavy rain through Wednesday afternoon, jeopardizing the start of the second Mets-Braves game at 7:20 p.m. ET. The series finale scheduled for Thursday was a make-up game from a rescheduled date in April.

Bad weather that forced MLB to step in to play an affected game has happened before, just this week. On Tuesday, the game between the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Rays at Comerica Park was moved up from 6:40 p.m. ET to 1:10 p.m. ET because of the threat of bad weather.