A’s, Giants face 30 mph winds at matchup in Sacramento. Will it affect the game?
Hats, food wrappers and flyballs are expected to soar when the San Francisco Giants play the A’s at 1:05 p.m. Sunday. Winds are forecast to reach up to 30 mph out of the northwest at the stadium, according to the National Weather Service.
Ken Arneson, chief technology officer at Weather Applied Metrics, told the San Francisco Chronicle that gusts could be strong enough to push flyballs as much as 115 feet back toward home plate.
A ball that might have been a home run in calm conditions could instead turn into a single if an outfielder misjudges it in the wind.
A San Francisco Chronicle senior baseball reporter, posted on social media that conditions in Sacramento were difficult even before the game began.
“Can confirm the wind here today is insane,” she tweeted. “Unpleasant for a normal person, can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for an outfielder. Or a player who belts a ball that gets pushed back this far.”
Players and fans may find the wind a nuisance, but the gusts also have the potential to make the game — or a player —memorable. Think pitcher Stu Miller and his much-discussed balk at notoriously windy Candlestick Park. Decades later, whether he was blown off the mound is still debated.
