The Long March

[Frayed Knot]

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So tomorrow starts a long slog for both the players and us.

This current road trip is the first of five the Mets make between now and June 7th, four of which will take them out west for at least part of the trek. So over the next two+ months (67 days) they’ve got 59 games, 32 of which will be on the road, 22 of them in either the Pacific or Mountain time zones, and 15 of those 22 will be late night starts here in the east. So more than 1/4 of the next 59 games (36% of the entire schedule) will be 9:30 EDT or later starts.

There will be no days off prior to the first game of each west coast series although the day before each trip will at least all be day games. There will be a (mandated) day off following each trip as they return east.

April 2, 3, 4, 5 (Thu - Sun) in SF: N, N, N*, D (4:05)

April 13, 14, 15 (Mon - Wed) @ LAD: N, N, N

May 1, 2, 3 (Fri - Sun) @LAA: N, N, D (4:07) Yeah, good move by scheduling two trips to LA two weeks apart rather than all at once.

May 4, 5, 6 (Mon - Wed) @ COL: N, N, D (3:10)

May 8, 9, 10 (Fri - Sun) @ ARZ: N, N**, D (4:10)

Jun 4, 5, 6 (Mon - Wed) @ SEA: N, N, D (3:40)

Jun 5 - 8 (Fri - Sun) @ SD:: N, N, D (4:10)

 

*The Saturday game in SF suxx cuz the NoCal teams (or, I guess, Team-singular going forward) traditionally play their Saturday games in the afternoon but not here for some reason.

**4:15 local start/7:15 EDT so we catch a bit of a break here

[metirish]

Feels like a make it or break it stretch, they had better wake up starting in SF

[Gwreck]

A couple of notes:

1. I admittedly don’t pay a lot of attention to the Giants but I wasn’t aware of any tradition that they played on Saturday afternoon.  Their 2026 schedule has 7 starts at 1:05 Pacific, 2 at 4:15, 3 at 6:05, and 2 at 7:05.  (Seems like a reasonable assortment of start times to accommodate a diverse fanbase, no?)

2. It is generally not possible for teams going out west to schedule the two LA teams back-to-back, because (a) those two teams typically don’t play at home at the same time; and (b) they play in different leagues.  Same reason there are very few roadtrips that have Mets/Yankees back-to-back.  (There are 2 teams that got lucky with Dodgers/Angels in consecutive series, and 1 got Mets/Yankees).

There are few more teams that get SD/Dodgers back-to-back, and another couple that got SD/Angels back-to-back, but again, there aren’t enough spots for everyone to get so lucky.

3. While this is a lot of travel early, the post-June 7 schedule has only 9 games outside the Eastern time zone, with none starting later than 8 PM Eastern.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

As we were all reminded yesterday there is nothing worse than  the Mets losing a day-game rubber-game while you're at work. That's the worst schedule there is.

Late night starts can be challenging but if they're getting 1-hit in the 6th inning you can at least go to sleep,

Giants iirc always had the latest starts -- 10:30 at night, back in the day, I'd have to be asleep before they started.

[Frayed Knot]

2 hours ago, Gwreck said:

A couple of notes:

1. I admittedly don’t pay a lot of attention to the Giants but I wasn’t aware of any tradition that they played on Saturday afternoon.  Their 2026 schedule has 7 starts at 1:05 Pacific, 2 at 4:15, 3 at 6:05, and 2 at 7:05.  (Seems like a reasonable assortment of start times to accommodate a diverse fanbase, no?)

Oh yeah, both SFG and, to a lesser extent, Oakland have long played the majority of their Saturday games during the day. This was especially true back in the Windlestick Park days when night games in SF were the equivalent to a Navy Seal survival test but it's still so now according to your stats there (9 day / 5 night) even if by a smaller ratio than before; in the past those D/N games might have been more like a 12/2 split

So I just figured that a weekend series v the Giants meant a probable 2/2 split in D/N games, particularly in April, but, alas, it was Knot 2 B. 

By contrast, the SoCal teams have long played their Saturdays at night almost exclusively and long before it started to become the fashion in the east. Even back when the Padres were perennial losers barely drawing flies in that overgrown football stadium out where Interstates 5 & 8 cross, Saturday nights were often their biggest crowds of the week. No one wants to go to a ball game in the day time in LA or SD, they're all at the beach.

And of course this means fewer late night games in the second half, but it still makes for a rough stretch now, especially since the Mets are on the road to 7 of the 10 West Division teams this year and two of the home series are with the ones only one time zone away (HOU & TEX). The only true PTZ team we skip visiting this year is West Sacramento. We hit the other five plus Arizona which is an honorary PTZ team once DST starts.

[Gwreck]

In the last 16 seasons, the Mets have played 10 Saturday games in San Francisco: 5 day and 5 night.  

Want to feel old?  This is the 27th season the Giants are playing at their current park.

[MFS62]

36 minutes ago, Gwreck said:

In the last 16 seasons, the Mets have played 10 Saturday games in San Francisco: 5 day and 5 night.  

Want to feel old?  This is the 27th season the Giants are playing at their current park.

I remember rushing home from school in 1958 to listen to their first game in Seals Stadium recreated (reading off the ticker tape with recorded crowd noises in the background) by Les Keiter. 

Yes, I feel old.

Later