Why aren't we playing today?

[UofCSoxFan]

Detroit has an off day today after playing a day game in Boston on Sunday. The Sox are also off today after playing at home. My question is why was the makeup game scheduled for tomorrow as part of a Day Night double header instead of just making it a 4 game series over 4 days?

I know there are CBA rules governing how many days in a row a team can play. My understanding is a team can play a maximum of 24 days in a row, in the vent of a makeup game. This number is only 20 days in a row with no makeups.

If the White Sox had played today, that would put them at exactly 24 days in a row, the maximum allowed (from July 23rd through August 15 (off August 16).

If the Tigers had played, they had a rainout on July 23rd, so they would have played everyday from July 24th through August 11, a period of only 19 days. The only thing I can think of is that since the July 23rd "day off" was due to a rainout, this somehow doesn't count as an off day. If that were the case, that would push Detroit to 27 days in a row without an offday, had they played today. This seems a bit dumb to me that a rainout not be considered an off day since it's likely players didn't even warmup. If the point is to have them rested, well mission accomplished.

Anyone know the nuance of this? It just seems to me that both teams would rather play 2 games over 2 days then have to call up another arm for a doubleheader Plus, I don't suspect that Detroit ownership loves burning a home date against a big rival at noon on a Tuesday. They're probalby missing out on at least 15,000 to 20,000 fans because of that.

[Zakath]

I would assume that a rainout would still count as a "day of work" for the purposes of the CBA, in that the players had to show up, practice, get ready to play, and then wait to see if the game was going to be called or not.

[TDog]

It's not a real doubleheader. It's a day-night doubleheader. The players have to consent to that before it can be scheduled. The players also would have had to consent to give up the off day under the circumstances. (I'm not sure if both teams or only one team needed to consent to giving up the off-day based on consecutive days with games.)

Essentially, the players had a choice of playing on Monday or playing two games on Tuesday. I suppose if players rejected both ideas, it would have been possible to have a rule-book doubleheader (two games for one admission with a half-hour between games), but the Tigers might not have had that on the table.

[Sam Spade]

If the Tigers had played, they had a rainout on July 23rd, so they would have played everyday from July 24th through August 11, a period of only 19 days. The only thing I can think of is that since the July 23rd "day off" was due to a rainout, this somehow doesn't count as an off day. If that were the case, that would push Detroit to 27 days in a row without an offday, had they played today. This seems a bit dumb to me that a rainout not be considered an off day since it's likely players didn't even warmup. If the point is to have them rested, well mission accomplished.
If I had a guess it would be that they had to plan for it taking the 27 days into account. By time the game was rained out, and it was an off day, it was too late for them to change dates.

[whitesoxfan]

I think the same thing happened for the Tigers doubleheader in Cleveland. They both had Thursday open, yet they elected to play their twinbill on Saturday.