Indians to experiment with earlier weeknight start times

The Cleveland Indians have an idea that they hope will make attending weeknight games more appealing to their fans.

For five home games – three in April and two in May – first pitch will be at 6:10 p.m., an hour earlier than usual for a week night. Here are the games in question:

• Monday, April 27 vs. Kansas City
• Tuesday, April 28 vs. Kansas City
• Wednesday, April 29 vs. Kansas City
• Tuesday, May 12 vs. St. Louis
• Wednesday, May 13 vs. St. Louis

According to a team release, the decision to move up start times was made “in order to avoid potential cold weather conflicts,” over the first six weeks of the season. Cleveland.com’s Zack Meisel adds that the Indians will make an announcement soon to explain their thought process.

Having games start earlier, and thus end earlier, should also attract more families on school nights and perhaps entice those that work in the downtown core near Progressive Field to stick around for the ballgame.

The Indians averaged just 18,428 fans per game last season, the second-worst mark in the league as well as their lowest average attendance number since 2010. Anything the organization can do to boost the amount of people in the seats is positive.

It’s hard to say how much we’ll be able to extract from just five games but it’s definitely worth watching what happens. If it works out well for the Indians, it’s a small change that more teams around the league could adopt in the future.

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Israel Fehr is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter. Follow @israelfehr