Hurricane Helene’s Impact on MLB: Crucial Braves-Mets Series Postponed Due to Storm

Hurricane Helene is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast on Thursday. In the meantime, heavy rains and destructive winds are expected in parts of the Southeast, including Atlanta, home of this week’s key MLB series featuring the Braves and New York Mets.

The Braves and Mets are battling for NL wild-card spots and were set to wrap up their three-game series on Thursday. Atlanta won the first game on Tuesday, 5-1. However, on Wednesday afternoon, Major League Baseball announced that the final two games of the series had been postponed due to the storm.

The teams will play a doubleheader in Atlanta on Monday to make up for it. Monday is the final day of openers before the AL and NL wild-card series begin on Tuesday, as the regular season ends on Sunday. The Mets are in Milwaukee from Friday through Sunday, while the Braves host Kansas City over the weekend.

As of Wednesday, the Mets hold one of the three NL wild-card spots, while the Braves are a half-game away from a playoff spot. Monday’s doubleheader could be crucial in that wild-card race, though the games “will only be played if they are important to one or both teams for playoff reasons.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency Monday, two days before Helene was upgraded to a hurricane. Hurricane Helene is expected to be a Category 3 storm when it makes landfall, with winds in excess of 110 mph, and “life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds, and flooding across much of Florida and the southeastern United States,” according to the National Hurricane Center.

Atlanta is expecting thunderstorms and heavy rain Wednesday afternoon, threatening the 7:20 p.m. ET start time for the second Mets-Braves game. Thursday’s scheduled series finale was a makeup game from a postponed April date.

Bad weather that forced MLB to intervene in an affected game has happened before, most recently this week. On Tuesday, the game between the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Rays at Comerica Park was moved from 6:40 p.m. ET to 1:10 p.m. ET due to the threat of bad weather.