Mets-Phillies postponed after rainout miscue on Sunday
NEW YORK — The New York Mets sidestepped another meteorological miscue Monday night.
A day after pushing starter Marcus Stroman to pitch amid rain that paused play after seven minutes, the Mets called off their game Monday against the Philadelphia Phillies with another downpour en route, rescheduling it as part of a doubleheader on Tuesday.
The decision was announced about two hours before Monday’s 7:10 p.m. scheduled first pitch.
The single-admission doubleheader will start at 4:10 p.m. on Tuesday, and the second game will start about 30 minutes after the first game ends. Both games will be seven innings, keeping with an adjustment introduced during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
The rainout follows a blunder by the Mets ballpark operations staff, which powered ahead with a first pitch Sunday afternoon only to have umpires waive the teams off the field two outs into the top of the first inning. Home teams make decisions regarding delays before games start, but once they’re underway that power transfers to the umpires.
Stroman started that game for New York and threw just nine pitches. He tweeted his unhappiness to have wasted his turn in the rotation.
“This game should have never been started. Not smart at all,” Stroman tweeted during the delay. “Those conditions put everyone at risk. Beyond happy no players on either side were injured. Hate that I have to wait another 5 days to pitch again. That’s a miserable feeling.”
Mets manager Luis Rojas said Monday that Stroman will keep his slot in the rotation, getting four days of rest before pitching Friday at Colorado.
Miami manager Don Mattingly opted to use reliever John Curtiss as an opener Sunday, leaving the Marlins rotation unaffected. Curtiss never reached the mound.
Rojas insisted the Mets learned a lesson about trying to “protect the players” from Sunday’s drama, but he also said the team didn’t plan to substitute a reliever for scheduled starter David Peterson if Monday’s game began amid more rain.