With Hurricane Irma on Horizon, Yankees, Rays Unlikely To Flip-Flop Series

The series could be played at a neutral site.

The Yankees will not flip-flop a home series with the Rays, as it remains unknown whether Tampa Bay will be able to host New York next week with Hurricane Irma on the horizon.

The Yankees and Rays are scheduled to play a three-game series at Tropicana Field starting on Monday, the same day Hurricane Irma is expected to make landfall in Florida. The only other games the two teams have against each other is a three-game set in New York on Sept. 26-28, so the two teams could have feasibly flipped the series. 

But that doesn't appear to be in the cards, leaving open the possibility that the teams play the three-game series next week at a neutral site. The two teams also could play a double-header on Tuesday or Wednesday in Tampa Bay—what the series will look like and where it will take place is very much up in the air. 

"I think the trouble with [flipping] is people have bought tickets for those games," Yankees manager Joe Girardi told the New York Daily News. "That’s the problem for us and I don’t think that’s fair to do for our fans. So, well you can just flip the tickets, well people plan trips around that. So I don’t think that’s fair.”

The Rangers were also unwilling to simply flip home series with the Astros in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, and the two teams played at Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay.

Both the Yankees and Rays are alive and well in the AL playoff race. The Yankees trail Boston by four games in the AL East but hold a two-and-a-half game lead over the Twins for the first Wild Card Spot. The Rays are three games back of Minnesota.