MLB is about to have a hurricane disaster in Houston

Hurricane Harvey is about to hit the Texas Gulf Coast with massive amounts of rain that could last for several days.

I mean, look at how much rain!

Houston is right on the edge of the pink and purple areas on that map, meaning there could be around 20 inches of rain falling in that area over the next week.

That’s an awful lot of rain. And according to this weather forecast, tropical storm conditions could last all the way into Monday in the area, with more rain lasting well into the week.

That won’t bother the Astros this weekend, as they are in Anaheim to take on the Angels.

But it very well could affect them next week, when they are scheduled to return home to play the Rangers in a three-game series beginning Monday. The Astros are well in command in the A.L. West, leading by 12½ games. But the Rangers are now in wild-card contention; as of Friday morning they were one of five teams within one game of the second wild-card spot. Those games will be very important to the Rangers.

With tropical storm conditions, neither the Astros nor the Rangers (who are in Oakland playing the Athletics this weekend) might not be able to fly into Houston late Sunday. But beyond that, even if the teams can get there, fans and gameday workers might not be able to get to Minute Maid Park due to massive flooding in the Houston area. 20 inches of rain is an awful lot of rain!

There’s a simple solution to this, though it might inconvenience some. MLB should swap the Astros/Rangers remaining home series. The teams are currently scheduled to play at Globe Life Park in Arlington September 25-27. They should play in Arlington next week and then they could play in Houston in September. While some ticketholders might be inconvenienced, it’s probably a better idea than the chance that the teams might wind up having to postpone all three games next week and then figure out how (and where) to play them.

As you know, the Astros have moved games out of Houston before, doing so in 2008 when Hurricane Ike was bearing down on the area. That’s how the Cubs wound up playing them at Miller Park in Milwaukee in September 2008, and we wound up celebrating a Carlos Zambrano no-hitter. Here’s my ticket from that game:

Hope MLB is on top of this situation. It would be better for them to fix this problem now than to wait until Monday.