ESPN News Services
Aug 18, 2023, 07: 00 PM ET
Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer have altered their game schedules in California this weekend because of the forecast for Hurricane Hilary, which was churning off Mexico’s Pacific coast Friday as a powerful Category 4 storm.
In baseball, each of the games — Arizona at San Diego, Tampa Bay at the Los Angeles Angels and Miami at the Los Angeles Dodgers — will now be played Saturday as part of split doubleheaders.
The first game in San Diego begins at 3: 10 p.m. ET, and the second is scheduled for 8: 40 p.m. ET. The opener at Angel Stadium starts at 4: 07 p.m. ET, and the nightcap is scheduled for 9: 07 p.m. ET. The games at Dodger Stadium are scheduled for 3 p.m. ET and 9: 10 p.m. ET.
“I’m very grateful that they were proactive in the thought,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s certainly going to be an inconvenience for some people that had Sunday tickets, but to at least get ahead of it made sense to me. … This is crazy. A hurricane, Southern California, this is very unprecedented, clearly. I just want to make sure we get ahead of it, people get safe and it passes us by.”
In soccer, the LA Galaxy–Real Salt Lake and LAFC–Colorado Rapids games were both scheduled to take place Sunday night at 10: 30 p.m. in Los Angeles, but each has been moved. The Galaxy-RSL clash will now take place Oct. 14, at Dignity Health Sports Park. The LAFC-Colorado matchup was pushed to Wednesday at BMO Stadium.
The NFL, meanwhile, was set to hold a conference call with the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Chargers on Friday regarding what to do about Sunday’s exhibition game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
Possibilities range from canceling the game to moving the time up Sunday because the Rams play at SoFi on Saturday night. The Saints-Chargers game is scheduled for 7: 05 p.m. ET Sunday.
“I just heard there’s going to be a phone call today with the league and the stadium so we’ll see what happens,” Saints coach Dennis Allen said. “Obviously, with the weather, the most important thing is that everybody stays safe, so whatever it takes for everybody to stay safe, that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Hilary grew in strength early Friday before losing some steam, with its maximum sustained winds clocked at 130 mph in the evening, after falling from 145 mph. It was forecast to still be a hurricane when approaching Mexico’s Baja California peninsula on Saturday night and a tropical storm when approaching Southern California on Sunday.
No tropical storm has made landfall in Southern California since Sept. 25, 1939, according to the National Weather Service.
ESPN’s Katherine Terrell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.