It’s still unclear where exactly the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers will play their three-game series this week, but it almost certainly won’t happen in Houston.
Tropical Storm Harvey has wreaked havoc on the city with massive flooding leaving much of Houston underwater, as relief efforts continue far and wide. The Astros were set to return home this week for a three-game series with Texas and the New York Mets, but they instead flew to Dallas to wait and see what will come of their week.
The Atlantic’s Ken Rosenthal reported Monday morning that Major League Baseball was looking at neutral sites for the series, and it appears Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, is the most likely spot for the games to be played.
Additionally, Rosenthal said the Astros’ weekend series with the Mets — scheduled to be played at Minute Maid Park in Houston — is looking more and more likely to be played in New York.
Strong possibility for #Rangers–#Astros series, per sources: The Trop in St. Pete. Astros’ next home series vs. #Mets could shift to NYC.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 28, 2017
And while the Astros obviously have bigger things on their mind at the moment, moving these two series could create a travel nightmare. As Rosenthal also pointed out, moving both the Texas and New York series would turn a short three-game road trip to Anaheim (where Houston played this past weekend) into a 19-game road trip.
If everything unfolds that way, the Astros would be looking at a hellacious travel schedule in which they would go from Anaheim to Dallas to St. Petersburg to New York to Seattle to Oakland to Anaheim — and then, hopefully, back to Houston where their next scheduled home game would come Sept. 15 against the Mariners.
There are two days off in that stretch, but those come during the California swing and might not allow the Astros to return to Houston and “repack,” so to speak.
Regardless, it’s tough sledding ahead for an Astros team that currently is trying to fend off the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians for the top seed in the American League. Of course, those concerns seem trivial compared to what’s going on to everyone else in Houston at the moment.
Thumbnail photo via Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports Images
