Mother Nature Foiled Red Sox’s Reasoning For Doubleheader

For the first time since 1978, the Boston Red Sox had a scheduled doubleheader on Saturday at Fenway Park against the Tampa Bay Rays — and it was at the request of the ball club.

Red Sox CEO and president Sam Kennedy explained to MassLive’s Sean McAdam on Wednesday the reasoning behind the change to the original 2023 schedule to include the doubleheader.

“It is very much an experiment,” Kennedy told McAdam. “When we looked at the original schedule, it had us playing (the fourth game of the series) on Monday, a wraparound series — Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We talked to Chaim (Bloom), Brian O’Halloran and Alex Cora, and said, ‘What about trying a doubleheader on the weekend?’

“We said that for two reasons. One, we think there will be more fan interest for day baseball on the weekend. And No. 2, it gets us that off-day and the ability to get some rest on that Monday and not have to worry about the start time on the Monday when we’re going to be getting ready to go to Cleveland (where the Sox have a three-game series June 6-8). It’s very much an experiment to see how it goes, but it was a proactive measure, based on those two factors, taking into account fan interest and Baseball Operations.”

Red Sox chief baseball officer Bloom echoed the reasoning outlined by Kennedy prior to Friday’s scheduled series opener against the Rays.

“By playing two on Saturday,” Bloom told McAdam. “We pick up an extra off-day at a point in the schedule where we’d have gone a long time without one. The doubleheader makes for a long day, no doubt. There are tradeoffs in everything. But the off-day is valuable, too, and that’s why this got the support of both staff and players.”

Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans on Friday night and the game was postponed due to rain and rescheduled for Monday, June 5 at 4:05 p.m. ET, forcing the Red Sox to give up that valuable day off.

Kennedy added the Red Sox are interested in experimenting with schedule changes like this to benefit the team.

“We’re very interested in experimenting with things like this. With earlier start times on certain days — just trying to look at things with a little bit of a fresh perspective,” Kennedy said. “The travel is a grind, so we’re going to look at ways we can try different things.”

With the late afternoon start time on Monday, the Red Sox will most likely travel to Cleveland following the game allowing the players a little bit more rest than traveling after a night game.