The Houston Astros just finished a four-game series in Anaheim last night. It was a scheduled night game, starting at 6:07 PM Pacific time. Tonight they start a series at home against the Rangers. Due to the time of the game ending and the loss of a couple of hours flying back to the Central time zone, the flight after the game was scheduled to get them home at roughly 5:15 AM.
That late night flight followed by no off day has some of the Astros a bit perturbed. From the Houston Chronicle, here’s Josh Reddick’s take on it which, it should be noted, is not just his singular opinion:
The Angels were allowed to schedule this game due to this passage in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which applies in 2019 as well:
The passage later refers to an Appendix that specifies the flight time between an Angels game and an Astros game as two hours and forty-two minutes. By taking the 12 minutes over the two and a half set forth there, and subtracting it from a 7 PM start time, the 6:07 PM start time is technically allowable.
But it’s also a bunch of baloney.
For starters, a flight from L.A. to Houston is not two hours and forty-two minutes unless you’re in a fighter jet. It’s more like a three and a half hour flight, give or take. And that doesn’t count the bus ride to LAX that can take an hour. Maybe they could fly out of John Wayne Airport which is closer, but for whatever reason they don’t.
Let us not get too deeply in those logistical weeds, though. No matter how you work the math, the fact is that it was still, for all practical purposes, a night game and there was no way it was ever going to allow the Astros to get home at anything other than the wee hours this morning.
Technically allowable or not, the game should’ve been a day game or the Astros should’ve gotten an off day.