Atlanta Braves: Start time for games 1 & 2 of NLDS announced

Major League Baseball finally announced game times for the first three days of the postseason, including games one and two of the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals series.

Late Monday afternoon, Major League Baseball announced the start times for the first two games of the NLDS between the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals.

Of course, game one comes with a caveat depending on what happens in the Wild Card games.

The Atlanta Braves will either play at 5:02 p.m. ET on Thursday or 6:02 p.m. ET. And on Friday it is set in stone that game 2 of the NLDS between the Braves and Cardinals will start at 4:37 p.m. ET.

This is pretty much what we expected all along, although I’m a little confused as to why the time for Thursday changes depending on the Wild Card winner.

My assumption is that with Washington being an East Coast team they’d want that game in Los Angeles to start sooner. If it’s Milwaukee they can start it a little later.

But obviously it makes sense for the Dodgers to get the late time slot. And it was pretty predictable that the New York Yankees would get the primetime game on Friday night.

Even though the Houston Astros are likely the favorite to win the World Series, they get the terrible 2:05/1:05 local start on Friday.

They announced game times for Saturday as well with the Minnesota Twins and New York Yankees scheduled to play at 5:07 p.m. ET and the Oakland Athletics and Astros set to play at 9:07 p.m. ET.

I would expect the same start times for the third games of the NLDS on Sunday with the Atlanta Braves getting the 5:07 slot. I’m not sure why they didn’t go ahead and announce that one as well.

Hopefully now everyone can begin to make their plans to be at SunTrust Park on Thursday and Friday to cheer on the Atlanta Braves. I’ll see you there!