With Hurricane Ike bearing down on the city of Houston, Major League Baseball has decided to postpone the first two games of the Cubs series in Houston versus the Astros.
The two teams plan on being able to play on Sunday. While it looks like a doubleheader could be played on Sunday followed by a single game on Monday no official word has come yet. According to Cubs.com the only scheduled game is Sunday afternoon.
If Minute Maid Park is unavailable or the Cubs cannot travel into Houston, MLB is looking at alternate locations. The cities that are rumored as alternate sites are Washington, Atlanta, and Tampa.
For now the two teams are in a holding pattern, as they should be with the dangerous weather situation. Some things are more important than baseball, and hurricanes are certainly one of them.
The Cubs have returned to Chicago after taking two out of three in St. Louis. The plan on working out in Chicago on Saturday. If they can fly into Houston Saturday night, they will do so.
This layoff could be helpful for the Cubs. With Harden and Zambrano's health in question, it will be nice to take a couple days off.
For Houston, this could be a disadvantage. The Astros are currently riding a 6 game win streak and have been the hottest team in baseball since the All Star break. The break could cool them off.
Certainly Houston wants to play these games at home so they will do everything they can to play Sunday.
If the series must shift to a neutral site, the Cubs will have the advantage. Wherever the game is played, the stadium will most likely be mostly Cub fans.
Last night win may have been one of the biggest of the year. With Milwaukee losing, the Cub win pushed their lead in the Central to 5.5 games with 16 scheduled games to go. The magic number now sits at 11. Any combination of Cub wins and Brewers losses that add up to 11 clinches the division for the north side.
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2 comments:
I think Ike helped out the Cubbies tremendously.
With how poorly they've been playing lately, I think it was good that they had Friday and Saturday off.
And to put icing on the cake, the series in Houston got moved to a "neutral" site in Milwaukee, which is also known as Wrigley North.
These 2 games in Wrigley North tonight and tomorrow are basically home games for the Cubs. Lets hope they recharged their batteries and ready to start playing some better baseball over the next 2 weeks and gain some steam heading into the playoffs.
Big Z, baby.
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