Roofgate? Astros manager Dusty Baker perplexed why Globe Life Field roof is open for Game 4 of ALCS

Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker doesn’t understand why Major League Baseball changed its mind and decided to open the Globe Life Field roof for Game 4 of the ALCS on Thursday.

“We were told that there was an agreement that we wouldn’t open the roof in neither place. So what changed?” said Baker, ”I got word prior to us coming here that the agreement on both sides was closing the roofs. So that’s a bummer.”

Baker said he wasn’t sure what effect the roof might have on the Astros, who won 8-5 on Wednesday with the roof closed.

“Well, we really don’t know. We are fortunate enough to work out here prior to this series, you know, which helps,” said Baker, whose team lost the first two games of the best-of-seven series in Houston where the Minute Maid Park roof was closed.

When asked before the Rangers’ ALDS home game against the Baltimore Orioles, Texas general manager Chris Young said MLB officials decide if the roof would be open or closed during playoff games.

Since Globe Life Field opened in 2020, the Texas Rangers have played 44 games with the roof retracted with an overall record of 20-24 in those games. In the 2020 MLB postseason when games were played in Arlington because of COVID-19, 13 games were played roofless including games 1, 2 and 4 of the World Series.

In 81 home games, this season the Rangers averaged 5.96 runs and 1.8 home runs per game. With the roof retracted, albeit it a small sample size, the Rangers averaged 8.5 runs per game and 2.1 home runs per game while going 7-4.

Opponents haven’t experienced the same bump scoring 5.2 runs per game during the roofless games, a slight uptick from their otherwise average of 4.7 runs.

The last time the Rangers played with the roof open was in their 13-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies on May 21.

Young previously said that weather dictated most of the decision, this season the Rangers played only one game, on April 30 against the New York Yankees, with the roof open when the temperature was more than 80 degrees.

Third baseman Josh Jung isn’t concerned either way.

“We haven’t had the roof open in a while because it’s so hot here in Texas, but it should be fun. I mean, you have to look up and see the sky instead of the roof, that’s really the only difference,” said Jung.

Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said he didn’t feel that roof made an appreciable difference.