Braves-Cardinals rain delay screws over Atlanta with an absurd 27-hour timeline

As the rest of the southeast starts to complain that there is no rain, the Atlanta Braves will most certainly blame their hellish next 27 hours on the rain. Read my lips, as there is no lip-syncing necessary. Baseball is doing Atlanta so incredibly dirty by forcing them to play a double-header in St. Louis, ahead of a makeup game in Chicago, ahead of their three-game homestand vs. Pittsburgh.

Atlanta has been playing great baseball of late. Prior to dropping Game 1 at the St. Louis Cardinals, the Braves had won eight of their last 10. Unfortunately, one bad inning from rookie Spencer Schwellenbach culminated in a 4-3 loss to the Redbirds on Monday night. Then, the skies opened up. Or they did not. Who cares? The Braves have to play a double-header on Tuesday ahead of Chicago.

Although Reynaldo Lopez's Monday night start got pushed back to Wednesday afternoon, toeing the rubber for the nightcap will be Bryce Elder, a man who has been largely terrible on the mound since being named an NL All-Star last year. Then on Thursday, Chris Sale will take the mound vs. his former team in the Chicago White Sox at a mid-afternoon start time. After that, Atlanta will finally fly home.

Atlanta is going to play three games in 27 hours, in almost certainly sweltering heat. Great job, MLB!

The way the pitching plan is setting up, it puts even more pressure on Lopez and Sale to get it done.

The Braves' next day off will be on Monday ahead of their series vs. the visiting San Francisco Giants.

Atlanta Braves to be put through the wringer with a brutal 27 hours-plus

For as frustrating as this season has been for the Braves throughout, there are still no excuses, even though baseball is really making it a challenge for them. Since when does Rob Manfred care about anyone other than himself? Player safety, the integrity of the sport? Whatever. It is a bunch of grown men playing a children's game for a piece of metal. Surely, there was a better plan than this one, right?

The travel schedule for baseball is always going to be brutal, but you would think that over the course of several generations, we may have figured out a better way of doing this. At least Atlanta doesn't have to play a standalone game over in Seattle because some Washingtonian doofus forgot to close the retractable roof before they went home from work for the day. We should be so grateful for that!

Ultimately, Atlanta has no choice but to lock in and show a great sense of composure in a really tough spot. Baseball doesn't care about its players or its fans, as it is all about lining their oppulent three-piece suits with even more cash, or very expensive plastic in the modern ages of living life. It all starts with Lopez doing what he does by giving the Braves a quality start. Let's hope the bats are not asleep.

I am warning you that something so incredibly dumb will happen to Atlanta between now and Friday.