Washington Nationals change Opening Day start time from 4:05 to 7:05 tomorrow night

Make that Opening Night in D.C. With the threat of inclement weather in the nation’s capital for tomorrow afternoon, the Washington Nationals announced tonight their scheduled 4:05 season-opener with the New York Mets in the nation’s capital will now have a 7:05 PM start time.

Current forecasts have the skies over Nationals Park clearing just after 5:00 PM ET Thursday night, so the hope seems to be that pushing the start time back will allow both clubs to get the first of four games to be played this weekend in, since there is no scheduled off day for the day after the opener like there would usually be.

Davey Martinez told reporters in the club’s home ballpark earlier this afternoon that whether or not they play the first game tomorrow or on Friday, the starting rotation will stay set as he lined it up earlier this week, with Patrick Corbin in the opener, and Josiah Gray in Game 2 of 162:

The Mets announced earlier today that 26-year-old right-hander Tylor Megill will get the nod in tomorrow night’s game, with Max Scherzer, who has been working with a right hamstring injury recently, starting the second game of the series.

A Scherzer/Gray matchup (which will only be available on Apple TV — with no subscription required — for now) on Friday night, with all the drama involved in seeing pitchers included in a high-profile trade facing off, and with Scherzer returning to D.C. to face the Nationals for the first time following a seven-year run with the team, over which he won two Cy Young awards, threw two no-nos, struck out 20 batters in a start, and helped the club win a World Series, should be a lot of fun.

But we’ll all have to wait a few hours to see the Nationals and Mets kick off the 2022 season if they do get to play tomorrow night...