Chicago Cubs President of Business Operations Crane Kenney was interviewed on 670 The Score today, and as you might expect, the topic for the day is how the Cubs get out of this ridiculous one-day trip to what will be a hurricane-impacted Washington D.C. on Thursday.
The Cubs are working on it, but some of the ideas may already be off the table:
Making use of a neutral site for the makeup game against Nationals on Thursday has been talked about, but clock has pretty much run out on that idea, #Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney says.
— 670 The Score (@670TheScore) September 11, 2018
Crane Kenney says the Cubs are trying to persuade MLB to reschedule Thursday’s makeup game in DC to later in the year. If that can’t work, they’re hoping to change Friday’s game time to later in the day.
— Bernstein & McKnight (@Bernstein_McK) September 11, 2018
#Cubs are working with city officials to move the start time against Reds at 1:20 p.m. back to later in the afternoon or evening, Crane Kenney says. If Cubs play Thursday in DC, they want more time to rest before Friday's game.
— 670 The Score (@670TheScore) September 11, 2018
Getting the Friday home game bumped back to be a rare nighttime contest would certainly help with the travel, but it’s not even in the ballpark – so to speak – as getting the Washington game pushed to the end of the season on October 1.
There are obviously a lot of contingencies here that are dependent on what happens with the weather, so we might see a decision delayed until the last possible moment (i.e., hopefully, right before the Cubs would otherwise be getting on a plane tomorrow night).
Meanwhile, a report out of Washington suggests a neutral site is still possible for Thursday:
Getting sense Nats still think Thursday make-up game and this weekend’s series in Atlanta could get sent to neutral sites because of Flo. That’s an extremely complicated process because of all the money involved, and no one official has said anything, but stay tuned.
— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) September 11, 2018
Pushing to end of season is the ideal outcome, but a neutral site (Milwaukee is off that day, for example) would be better than no change at all.
Please do the right thing, MLB … otherwise the Cubs might have horrible travel imposed upon them for no reason at all, as they sit and stare at this thing all Thursday night: