Mets to play 10th doubleheader of season after game vs. Pirates rained out

The Mets are going to play yet another doubleheader this weekend.

Their series-opening contest against the Pirates on Thursday was postponed because of rain. They’ll make it up during a single-admission twin bill Saturday, starting at 4 p.m., their 10th doubleheader of the year and their sixth in 22 days.

That is the most doubleheaders played by any team before the All-Star break since 1978, when the Blue Jays had 10.

But here is the thing about the Mets’ quirky schedule: It very well could be helping them.

The Mets are 45-38 and led the NL East by four games, pending the results of games that did happen Thursday.

In doubleheader games, they are four games over .500 (11-7).

In all other games, they are three games over .500 (34-31).

It helps, too, that doubleheader games are seven innings each, a longstanding minor-league rule implemented by MLB and the MLB Players Association last year under the guise of player safety. With the pandemic raging in 2020, the thinking was the less time players spent at the ballpark, the better. Also, with the expectation that teams would have lots of doubleheaders because of coronavirus-postponed games, they wanted to manage the workload.

The shortened games stuck around for 2021, and it has worked in the Mets’ favor.

Already, the Mets have had 40 innings — more than four full games — chopped off their season. With at least three more doubleheaders on the schedule after Saturday, that total will reach 50 innings that Mets pitchers don’t have to pitch.

Manager Luis Rojas is a fan.

"I praise the decision on the seven-inning doubleheaders. They work really well," he said. "The four less innings, they help a lot. Those have come in handy. And so has the extra-inning rule. I think those two have been saviors when it comes down to health."

The extra-inning rule, also new last year, puts a runner on second to start every inning beginning in the 10th in regular games and the eighth in doubleheader games. Since it is easier to score, games rarely have lasted more than one or two extra innings.

"[The rules] can save a lot of guys from spending time on the IL, even though there’s been a lot of guys already on the IL around MLB," Rojas said.

The downside of the doubleheader rule is with the split-admission variety, fans who thought they were buying a ticket to a nine-inning game get stuck with a seven-inning game.

Rojas’ counterpoint: Players are less likely to need days off.

"You get your favorite players to only play two seven[-inning games], they’re going to get them in both games — an they’re going to be able to play the next day," he said. "It keeps the players healthy and it helps from a pitching end when our starter can go five to six or even seven and save your bullpen."

That is a total turnaround from Rojas’ take last year, when he said, "I like my nine-inning games."

At least some of the players like it, too, for the same reason: Shorter games are easier.

"They’re better than nine-inning doubleheaders for sure," Francisco Lindor said last month. "They are better. It was a long journey when those two nine-inning games were in play. So yeah, it’s fine.

"For people at home who might not like it, come play shortstop for 18 innings and maybe go extra innings. Let me know. We get paid a lot of money, but you still wear out."