National holidays feel like days when baseball should be played.
It’s a bit like another Sunday, a chance to play ball in the afternoon and get fans out to the stadium in the sunshine.
Labor Day is Monday, Sept. 7, on the late side this year but still a holiday and still one of those times that it would feel great to sit out in some bleachers and watch some baseball.
New York Yankees fans won’t get that opportunity, though. The Yanks have an off day on Monday.
It’s a bit of a bummer, particularly as the September stretch run arrives in the MLB season with lots of implications on the postseason ahead.
It might help the Yankees to be off, of course. It’s a chance to recharge the bullpen. It’s another day in which Aaron Judge can continue to get healthy — the plan was for him to face live pitching for the first time as part of his rehab assignment on Monday.
Still, it’s a day without Yankees baseball, which becomes a relative constant during the 162-game regular season but isn’t present on Labor Day.
There’s a simple explanation for it, as you’d expect. It’s just not all that satisfying.
Why Aren’t Yankees Playing Today?
The Yankees aren’t playing on Monday because it needed to be a travel day based on their schedule.
On Sunday, they wrapped up a series in San Diego.
On Tuesday, they’ll open a series at Yankee Stadium against the Colorado Rockies.
That’s obviously a long trip, and so the MLB schedule-makers gave the Yanks this Monday off. Teams have Mondays off somewhat frequently throughout the season, with most series concluding on Sunday meaning that if there’s travel to be done, it happens into Monday.
Of course, the schedule could’ve been made differently to allow the Yankees to play on Labor Day. Maybe they could’ve had an extended series in San Diego, or played the Rockies on the road to allow for a shorter trip from the West Coast.
That’s not what happened, though, and so the Yankees won’t be playing on the holiday.
They’ll have a bit of a sore taste in their mouth on Monday, too. The Padres started the bottom of the first on Sunday with back-to-back-to-back home runs and went on to win 4-3, a tough loss for the Yankees to take in a game that Gerrit Cole started on the mound.
The lowly Rockies should provide an antidote this week, but nothing is a given in baseball, and the Yankees will have to be locked in when they return to the field on Tuesday.
Yankees in Standings
The Yankees exit the weekend with an 81-62 record, and they hold the top spot in the three-place AL Wild Card standings.
They aren’t assured a playoff spot yet, but they’re in good position to be secure sooner rather than later.
The Tampa Bay Rays hold a four-game lead over the Yankees in the AL East Division. It could prove key to chase down that division crown, but with how well the Rays are playing right now, that would not be an easy task.
Why Yankees Aren’t Playing on Labor Day Holiday