After both teams unanimously agreed not to play on Wednesday night in a show of support for “a more equitable and just society,” the Dodgers and Giants will play a doubleheader on Thursday afternoon at Oracle Park in San Francisco. The announcement came late Wednesday evening.

“For me, no matter what, I wasn’t going to play tonight,” Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts said during a televised statement on Wednesday, along with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, left-hander Clayton Kershaw, and closer Kenley Jansen. “There’s a lot going on in the world, and change needs to be made. I have to use my platform to at least get the ball rolling. I talked to my teammates and told them how I felt, and they all were by my side.”

“As a white player on this team, it’s how can we show support, what’s something tangible that we can do to help our Black brothers on this team?” Kershaw added. “Once Mookie said that he wasn’t going to play that really started our conversation as a team of what we can do to support that. We felt the best thing to do was to support that in not playing.”

“Black people have been fighting this fight for centuries,” Robert said. “For the white brothers to come in and support the Black men in this game is much more powerful. We did talk to the Giants as well, and they were in lockstep with our thoughts.”

Per the announcement, Game-1 of Thursday’s doubleheader will begin at 1:05 p.m (PT), with Game-2 to follow approximately 30 to 45 minutes after the conclusion of the first game. Both games will be seven innings in length per a special COVID-19 collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association.

Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler is scheduled to start Game-1 for the Dodgers, with Game-2’s starter still TBD as of this writing.

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