The Cubs should reschedule their Wednesday and Thursday games against the Pirates

One of the biggest issues the Cubs had in 2018 was the weather, both in Chicago and away from Wrigley Field. They had nine postponements — the most since 1989 — and having to cram games into September gave them a very difficult schedule down the stretch.

Next week’s weather in Chicago does not look very good, except for early in the week:

That’s pretty nice for Opening Day Monday — especially considering last year’s snowout — but then the Cubs have Tuesday off before scheduled night games against the Pirates Wednesday and Thursday.

So I’m suggesting the Cubs be proactive and do this: Reschedule the Thursday night game for Tuesday evening at 7:05 p.m. CT, and move the Wednesday game up to 1:20 p.m. Leaving the schedule as is runs the risk of at least one and possibly two postponements, or at best playing in really bad weather conditions.

The Pirates do return to Wrigley twice more in 2019, but rescheduling an April postponement into the July series would mean either: a) losing the extra off day after the All-Star break, b) playing a split doubleheader at some point, or c) losing an off day July 18, when both teams could make up the date. Having two postponements would mean having to play one of them in September, when the Cubs already are scheduled on 18 straight days September 5-22 including a 10-game homestand without an off day and a trip to San Diego just before that.

Rescheduling now would allow fans to adjust plans — the two games after Opening Day aren’t likely to have huge crowds anyway — and help the Cubs avoid some bad weather. Looking later in the week, too, the weather for the Angels series next weekend doesn’t look so great and if the Cubs have to postpone an interleague game against a West Coast team, making up a game like that becomes problematic.

Both the Cardinals and White Sox postponed their home openers Thursday and are playing Friday instead, a good call for both teams, as the weather was pretty bad both in Chicago and St. Louis Thursday. Granted that this proposal would be moving a game forward instead of back, but with enough notice — doing it now or Saturday — fans could adjust.

What say you, Cubs? I don’t know if this is something MLB would permit, but if so, why not use that Tuesday off day, when the weather in Chicago will be reasonably good, to play baseball and try to avoid some bad weather?