Marlins to finish ninth inning of game against Mets on Monday if necessary

Thursday night looked like it was shaping up to be a seminal one for the Miami Marlins. With the Chicago Cubs losing yet again to the Braves in Atlanta, the Fish had the chance to move a game ahead of Chicago for the third and final NL Wild Card spot with a win in their series finale against the New York Mets. Miami entered the ninth trailing, 1-0, until some late-game magic struck: Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s double drove in Bryan De La Cruz to tie the game, and then Yuli Gurriel’s single flipped the script and made it 2-1 Miami.

All the Marlins needed to do was get three more outs, and they’d head on to Pittsburgh this weekend in the driver’s seat for a most unlikely playoff spot. Mother Nature, however, had other ideas: A gigantic rain system arrived in Queens right after Miami scored the go-ahead run, leading the umpires to bring out the tarps and suspend play. The teams waited out a rain delay of roughly three hours, waiting deep into the night and even into early Friday morning, but a playable window never arrived — New York is supposed to see upwards of two inches of rain between Thursday night and Saturday morning.

The game was officially called just before 1 a.m. ET. The league office makes all weather-related decisions at this time of year, and while MLB has yet to make an official announcement, several reports surfaced (including from Marlins GM Kim Ng) saying that the plan was for the two teams to reconvene on Monday afternoon and finish the game — if the result of said game will have an impact on the NL playoff picture, which it very well might.

For those wondering why the game can’t simply be called now, it has to do with a quirk of the rules: Whenever a game gets banged because of weather, the final score becomes what it was at the conclusion of the last full inning — i.e., Miami’s two runs in the top of the ninth would get wiped off the board, which is obviously unacceptable. It’s a brutal break for Miami, but given the realities of New York weather right now and where we are in the schedule, there really isn’t any other viable option: The Marlins have to be in Pittsburgh to open a series with the Pirates on Friday night, while the Mets host the Philadelphia Phillies this weekend (or try to, at least, but this rain shows no sign of letting up).

There’s a chance that the game will never have to be completed. The Marlins could clinch a postseason berth this weekend — they’re currently a half-game up on the Cubs with the head-to-head tiebreaker over Chicago, with a magic number of three — in which case flying back to New York to play the rest of the ninth won’t be necessary. Of course, there’s also a scenario in which that ninth inning is for all the marbles: A win and the Marlins are in the postseason, a loss and they’re out.

Should the latter come to pass, here’s how things will look when the game resumes. The Marlins will have Jon Berti at first base and Gurriel at second with two outs in the top of the ninth. Jorge Soler is at the plate, Reed Garrett is on the mound for the Mets, and Andrew Nardi is on the mound for Miami.