Tigers-Mets rained out Wednesday; twin bill on Thursday

NEW YORK -- The wet, cold reality of April in the Northeast continued to affect the Mets and Tigers on Wednesday, as the teams had a second straight game postponed due to rain. The clubs will play a single-admission doubleheader at Citi Field on Thursday beginning at 12:10 p.m. ET.

Of the six games on the Mets’ season-opening homestand, three were postponed due to rain, including Opening Day for a second straight year. The Mets had similar problems last year, albeit a bit later in the season, when they endured three postponements over a four-day period in late April and early May.

This year’s wet weather will result in the Mets playing 15 games over a 14-game stretch beginning Thursday, followed by a single day off and a six-game West Coast trip.

“Obviously, we’re dealing with some weather now that affects … some of the planning we’re talking about,” manager Carlos Mendoza said Tuesday.

The rejiggered schedule will have significant implications for a club already struggling to cobble together a rotation. Offseason trade acquisition Adrian Houser is scheduled to make his season debut in Game 1 of the doubleheader, followed, officially, by a pitcher to be determined in Game 2. One benefit of the doubleheader is that the 27th-man rule allows the Mets to call up José Buttó for Game 2 if they desire. Without the doubleheader, the Mets would have needed to wait until April 12 to use Buttó in a Major League game, because they optioned him to the Minors before Opening Day.

Unofficially, the Mets will proceed with Houser and Buttó in the doubleheader, followed by José Quintana, Luis Severino and Sean Manaea during their three-game series this weekend in Cincinnati. That leaves a vacancy in their rotation for Game 1 of a four-game series in Atlanta beginning Monday. Club officials believe that Julio Teheran, whom the Mets signed to a Major League contract on Wednesday, will be capable of starting that game.

Two other starting pitchers, Kodai Senga and Tylor Megill, are both on the injured list due to shoulder ailments.

“This is nothing new for them,” Mendoza said of his healthy rotation members. “They’ve been through it before, whether one of their teammates go down and they’ve got to step up, they know that. They know what’s ahead of them, and they’ll be ready for it.”

For now, the Mets are simply trying to wade through this current stretch, which has seen them lose each of their first four games when Citi Field was dry enough for baseball. A byproduct of all the rain is that the Mets have had to sit on their 0-4 record for more than two full days while waiting to play.

“You hate to go through it,” Mendoza said. “You hate to see it, especially the way we’re playing. They know. They know we’re better than that. But at the same time, it’s not the first time they’ve gone through it. It just happens to be the first four games of the season. Everything that we went through over the weekend was not the way we expected it. But I’m pretty confident of the guys we’ve got in that room. We’ll turn it around pretty soon here.”

Fans holding tickets to Wednesday’s originally scheduled game cannot use them for Thursday’s doubleheader, but can exchange them for that game if desired. Full ticketing information is available on Mets.com/Rain.