The final weekend of the MLB regular season should feature wall-to-wall action. But if you glanced over the Saturday slate, you may have noticed that a few teams are missing — a bizarre off day at the most crucial time of the year.
The Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles will not be playing baseball at all on Saturday. Heck, the Yankees and O's might not play another regular-season game at all. That's how much havoc the nor'easter currently battering the East Coast has had, as MLB has had to seriously reshuffle things to try and play as many games as possible amid heavy rain and winds.
MLB schedule today: Nor'easter wreaking havoc on Cubs, Red Sox and Yankees on Saturday, Sept. 26
Cubs-Red Sox move final game to Tampa
The Boston area is getting hit particularly hard, with flood warnings in effect for most of the weekend. Playing any baseball figured to be darn near impossible, so the Red Sox and the league office thought ahead.
First, Boston and the Cubs played a doubleheader at Fenway Park on Friday, before the rain arrived. Then, they had to get creative: With Saturday and Sunday both seemingly non-starters, the two teams headed south to Tampa, where they'll play their regular-season finale on Sunday at Tropicana Field. First pitch is currently set for 3:05 p.m. ET, and tickets are going for as little as $40 — so if you're a snowbird from Chicago or New England who currently lives in the area, you might want to pounce.
Yankees and Orioles may have already played their final games
The Yankees and Orioles tried to pull the same trick in the Bronx, playing two games on Friday and skipping Saturday entirely. Unlike Chicago and Boston, however, there are currently no relocation plans for Sunday's season finale — which is curious, to say the least, given that the forecast in New York City isn't looking great through the rest of the weekend.
Really, though, MLB may have just figured that it wasn't worth the trouble. Baltimore has already been eliminated from playoff contention, while the Yankees are locked into the first Wild Card spot. Playing one more game will change essentially nothing as far as the standings are concerned, so why force everybody to try and scramble together a game at a neutral site at the last minute? We'll see what the weather actually looks like on Sunday, but there's a good chance both of these teams have already concluded their 2026 regular seasons.
How will nor'easter affect the MLB playoff picture?
Luckliy, the short answer is not very much. Again, Baltimore and New York entered the weekend with nothing to play for, so switching Friday to a doubleheader and potentially canceling Sunday entirely won't impact the AL bracket. The O's are headed home for the winter after the weekend regardless, while the Yankees are set for a date with the Red Sox in the Wild Card Round beginning Tuesday night in the Bronx (by that point, the weather should hopefully have passed).
And speaking of Boston: They, too, have their postseason fate decided, as there's no way they can wind up anywhere other than the No. 5 seed in the AL. The Cubs do technically still have Wild Card positioning to play for — they enter Saturday 1.5 games back of San Diego for the No. 4 seed and a half-game up on the Phillies for the No. 5 seed. That's why the league was so desperate to find somewhere else to play this game on Sunday.
Chicago got swept in Friday's doubleheader, and obviously taking an impromptu trip to Florida with your pitching staff shaken up isn't exactly ideal just days before the start of the playoffs. If the Cubs win the finale in Tampa on Sunday, they'll likely wind up in the No. 5 spot, traveling to San Diego for a Wild Card series. If the Padres lose each of their final two games, though, there's still a chance they could host that series at Wrigley Field.
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