MILWAUKEE — David Stearns believed he was speaking for everyone involved in stating: “No one wants to play a doubleheader on Monday.”
He was not thinking about the Brewers.
The Mets, Braves and Major League Baseball do not want to squeeze in two games that were postponed this week and play them one day after the regular season ends and one day before the playoffs begin.
If, say, the Mets and Braves know their postseason fates, Rob Manfred could cancel the Monday games. The commissioner could decide that those games should not be played if only seeding is at stake.
The Brewers are doing their part to make both games happen by handing the Mets an 8-4 defeat in their series opener Friday.
“That would seem one-sided, right? You’ve got to play your games, right?” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said before his club smacked around the Mets. “We’ve got to play these three.”
The final series of the season does not matter for the Brewers, who have clinched the No. 3 seed in the National League.
Yet, they are incentivized to beat the Mets in part because doing so would help ensure those games in Atlanta matter and must be played.
Milwaukee will match up against the third NL wild card in the first round of the postseason, which could be a depleted Mets or Braves team that had endured 18 innings a night earlier.
Murphy believes not playing a full schedule would be an advantage because “you don’t have to use extra pitching that you would use,” Murphy said.
If the Mets use their regular five starting pitchers for the final five games of the season, they would not have a starter available on regular rest for Game 1 of the postseason.
Before beginning a series that did not matter in the standings for his own team, Murphy said the Brewers would “play to win” but acknowledged they would not “empty the tank.”
For example, he was not anticipating using a reliever on back-to-back days.
He stopped short of saying he was rooting for a first-round matchup with an exhausted team that survives 18 innings Monday.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Murphy said.
