Inclement weather on the East Coast has wreaked havoc with MLB games all week long; the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles even had the opener of their three-game set on Friday postponed hours before first pitch. The forecast was much the same in New York, calling for consistent rain, bitter cold and gusting winds.
And yet, despite a 26-minute rain delay before first pitch, the San Francisco Giants and New York Yankees took the field on Friday night anyway. The results were predictable: New York starter Marcus Stroman didn't even make it out of the first inning, eventually departing due to knee discomfort, and by the time the game reached the sixth inning manager Aaron Boone was petitioning to call a game that his team was set to lose just to send everybody home.
“[Yankees bench coach Brad] Ausmus and I were just talking, and that’s probably the worst conditions we’ve ever experienced,” Boone told reporters afterward, courtesy of The Athletic. “And we’ve been doing this a long time.”
Eventually, the umpiring crew obliged, calling the game and rewarding the Giants with a 9-1 win. But not before Yankees reliever Yoendrys Gomez had to slog through a top of the sixth inning that never should've happened — and that put not just Gomez but also Giants hitters at risk. The righty walked the first three batters he faced, nearly hitting San Francisco shortstop Willy Adames in the head with a slider that got away. It took Boone visiting the mound with a trainer, concerned over Gomez's dip in velocity, to convince the umpires to finally call for the tarp.
After waiting the league-mandated 30 minutes, the game was called. But the fact that it even got to this point is an indictment of everyone involved — but especially MLB, whose reckless scheduling set the stage for this in the first place.
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MLB puts Yankees, Giants players in danger amid awful weather
Per MLB rules, it's up to the home team to decide whether to call a game before it starts; but once the game begins, the responsibility then shifts to the league office. Boone was given conflicting weather information in the leadup to first pitch, but the Yankees decided to go ahead with the game anyway in hopes that they'd find a playable window before the rain got too bad.
Of course, they were also likely aware of just how much of an inconvenience a postponement would cause. The Giants won't return to New York until a series with the Mets in late July, and that three-game set that doesn't include any off-days in which San Francisco might be able to pop over to the Bronx to make up a game against the Yankees. MLB's push to expand interleague play in recent years has created more and more awkward fits, like asking the Giants to make their lone trip to the Northeast in early April — famously a pretty rainy season in the tristate area.
So the teams could either try to slog through five innings and hope no one gets hurt, or create a scheduling quandary that had no easy solution for the rest of the season. You can't blame them for choosing the former, although we're now left to hope that it doesn't come with any long-term consequences.