Major League Baseball has scheduled two crucial late-season games between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets as Hurricane Helene barrels toward the Florida Gulf Coast and south Georgia. The two wild-card hopefuls instead will play a doubleheader Monday — one day before the MLB Playoffs start.
The hometown Braves are hosting the Mets for the three-game series featuring teams that are neck-and-neck for a playoff spot with just only a handful of games remaining on their schedules. The region is under a hurricane warning, and Govs. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Ron DeSantis of Florida have declared a state of emergency.
Rain was expected to start falling around gametime tonight at Atlanta’s open-air Truist Park, and there’s a 100 percent chance of rain at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, when the final game of the Braves-Mets series was scheduled to begin. MLB announcement the postponement of both games rather than move them to a neutral site, which has happened three times since 2008. The doubleheader will start at 1:10 p.m. ET Monday.
Both Florida MLB teams — the Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays — are playing out of town this week, and neither is in the playoff hunt.
The National Hurricane Center upgraded the potentially dangerous system from tropical-storm status Wednesday morning. Helene is expected to strengthen over the Gulf of Mexico and hit Florida’s Gulf Coast by late Thursday as a major Category 3 or 4 hurricane with triple-digit sustained winds and a potentially life-threatening storm surge.
The biggest storm to make landfall in the U.S. in more than a year has the film and TV production hub of Atlanta, aka Hollywood South, in its cross-hairs. Asked by Deadline early Wednesday whether there are any postponements of film or TV shoots, a rep for the Atlanta Film Office said, “Nothing that we are aware of at this time.”
Over in Orlando, Disney World also is preparing for Helene but has no immediate plans to close. “Walt Disney World Resort is currently operating under normal conditions,” the company said in a statement this morning. “We are closely monitoring the path of the storm as we continue to prioritize the safety of our Guests and Cast Members.”
