The Brewers’ weekend series against the Miami Marlins has been switched from a road series to a home series at Miller Park because of ongoing cleanup in Miami after Hurricane Irma – giving the Brewers 84 home games, including 13 in a 16-game stretch as they closely pursue the first-place Cubs.
Despite the Brewers’ complaints over perceived scheduling slights by the Cubs this season, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said of the Brewers’ extra home cooking: “I have no issues with it. None.”
The Brewers in May got publicly irate over the Cubs’ weather postponement on an afternoon that turned sunny for hours. Then when the Cubs got the city to agree to a one-time exception to the ban on Friday night games to accommodate a tough travel turnaround from their most recent road trip, the Brewers tried to get MLB to nix the change; they claimed it was a competitive advantage for the Cubs.
Would the Brewers have squawked if the Cubs had gotten the three extra home games down the stretch?
“As severe as it is in south Florida and Florida in general, there’s no time to quibble over situations like this,” Maddon said. “I think it’s just a matter of you’re getting to the latter part of the season and whatever MLB thinks works best is fine.”
Besides, Maddon added, “They still have to play the Marlins with [home-run leader] Giancarlo [Stanton] doing as well as he is. The ball carries [at Miller Park] pretty good, too. So who knows?”
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Email: gwittenmyer@suntimes.com
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