Players prep for shift to night play

Manager has pushed for fewer day games

JUPITER — The best way to prepare for six months of late nights, according to decades of baseball norms, is with six weeks of early mornings.

And the Miami Marlins don’t really understand why. Their matchup Friday against the Tigers is their penultimate exhibition in a stretch of 35 Grapefruit League games in 36 days. And it’ll be just their third played at night.

Starting next week, the Marlins will play the vast majority of their 162 regular-season contests under the lights.

“Every year, that first [regular-season] night game of the season I’m up at 7:30 a.m. staring at the ceiling not knowing what to do with myself,” said right-hander Tom Koehler.

Said closer A.J. Ramos: “It’s beyond me why we don’t have more night games.”

And right-hander Dan Straily: “I’ve been waking up at 6 [a.m.] for the last 45 days. Those first night games, they hit you kind of hard.”

Those players are all in favor of more night games during spring training, and manager Don Mattingly suggested specifically playing more night games toward the end of March. That would make the switch to a regular-season schedule less

harsh.

Mattingly brings it up every so often, but to little effect.

“We talked about it in L.A. [with the Dodgers], we’ve talked about it here,” Mattingly said. “Everybody seems to go, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ But it just hasn’t happened.

“I’ve been lobbying for them, but I don’t think anybody listens to me. Everybody says, ‘That’s a great idea’ [and does nothing about it].”

The Marlins aren’t the only ones who want a little more preseason sleep. Some teams in recent years have adjusted their daily spring training schedule to allow players more rest. The Rays moved their daily workouts back an hour to 10:30 a.m. this year. In 2016, the Yankees encouraged their players to sleep in by pushing workouts back to 11:30 a.m. based on a Stanford sleep study.

Marlins players typically arrive at Roger Dean Stadium by 8 a.m., with many clocking in well before that for extra work. Workouts start around 9:30 a.m. Mattingly has mixed in occasional late-arrival and off days through camp, especially in the second half, but players usually start their days about six hours ahead of a normal regular-season schedule.

Playing more night games might not be as simple as deciding to. Major League Baseball, in conjunction with teams, has other factors to consider when creating the spring schedule.

Koehler, the players’ union representative for the Marlins, said the league has to deal with regulations in towns where spring training facilities are in residential neighborhoods, as Roger Dean Stadium is in Jupiter. And multi-hour bus rides after distant road games — like when the Marlins visited the Tigers in Lakeland or the Braves in Kissimmee — would be not great.

(It’s worth noting, however, that the Marlins played most of their road games this spring at Roger Dean Stadium against the Cardinals, in West Palm Beach against the Nationals and Astros, and in Port St. Lucie against the Mets.)

As second baseman Dee Gordon pointed out, the day schedule allows players to spend evenings with their families — quality time they usually don’t get April through September.

A compromise from Koehler: day games most of spring training, night games for the final week. He mentioned it last week, the day before the Marlins’ first spring night game, which he wasn’t looking forward to.

“Tomorrow is going to be terrible. Absolutely terrible,” Koehler said. “You have one thrown in now and one thrown in at the end of spring, it doesn’t help you out. And then all of a sudden you’re playing 140 night games.”

Added Mattingly: “It’s amazing what happens when you get to sleep in.”

“Tomorrow is going to be terrible. Absolutely terrible. You have one thrown in now and one thrown in at the end of spring, it doesn’t help you out. And then all of a sudden you’re playing 140 night games.” Tom Koehler, Marlins pitcher

JOHN BAZEMORE/AP