The remnants of Hurricane Hilary will depart Southern California and allow that area to return to its “normal” nice weather this week. Meanwhile, a couple cold fronts will bring fall-like temperatures to the Northeast U.S. this week (especially this weekend). Those cool weather conditions will leave us with hitting environments that are nowhere near as good as you would expect from the “dog days of summer.”

Targets: This Week’s Best Hitting Environment

• NY Mets at Atlanta (Monday-Wednesday; typical summer weather in Hotlanta for this series)
• Seattle at Chicago White Sox (Wednesday afternoon; possibly the hottest and most humid game of the week)
• LA Dodgers at Cleveland (Thursday afternoon; not quite as hot as in Atlanta or Chicago but still quite warm, humid AND an outbound wind of 15 mph should lead to a good hitting environment)
• Colorado at Baltimore (Friday-Sunday; not as favorable as the three options listed above but this series should have the best hitting weather of any series for this coming weekend)

Avoids: This Week’s Worst Hitting Environments

The Braves will go from a very favorable hitting environment at home early in the week with temps in the 90’s… to a poor one this weekend in chilly San Fran where temps will be 30 degrees colder. Not much has slowed down Atlanta’s hitters this year but maybe the weather can do it. Probably not, but this Phillies fan can at least hope!

• Miami at San Diego (Monday and Tuesday; game temps only around 69 degrees)
• Kansas City at Oakland (Monday and Tuesday; same cool weather as in San Diego)
• Atlanta at San Francisco (Friday-Sunday; this week’s coldest games as temps will be just 62-65 degrees)
• LA Dodgers at Boston (Saturday and Sunday; temps only around 72 degrees plus inbound winds of 15 mph).

Rainout Risks

Most of this week’s game forecasts call for a 30% or less chance of rain, so rainout risks this week are low overall. The most at-risk game is Friday’s Dodgers-Red Sox match where a cold front may bring showers and thunderstorms to that area.

Please remember that I am not suggesting that a slightly better hitting environment is enough reason to bench your superstars (rainouts, however, are a different story). Instead, use weather information as one of the pieces to help you decide when you’re weighing start/sit decisions, mainly for your non-superstars.

If you have a specific question, you can hit me up on Twitter (@LarryV86). Also, check back here on SportsEthos on Friday for the weekend update.

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Larry is a meteorologist who was fortunate to have a 36-year career “doing his hobby” with the National Weather Service. He’s a weather weenie who was fascinated by weather in elementary school and graduated with a degree in meteorology from Penn State. He obsesses about fantasy baseball, weather and the Phillies.