Red Sox-Cubs finale set to be played Sunday at Tropicana Field

The Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs will play Game 162 of their season at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Sunday afternoon after Major League Baseball relocated their series because of the forecast for poor weather in the Boston area this weekend.

The teams played a doubleheader Friday to get ahead of the incoming nor’easter, which is expected to bring rain throughout the day Saturday and Sunday. Neither team wanted to wait until Monday to play the final game of the regular season, with both participating in the wild-card round of the playoffs set to begin Tuesday.

After the Red Sox swept the doubleheader and the Padres lost later Friday, the Cubs were 1½ games back of San Diego for the top NL wild card. Boston is locked into the No. 3 seed in the American League.

Originally, the league announced the third game of the Cubs-Red Sox series would be played Saturday in Boston ahead of the incoming rain, but the forecast forced the date and location to be changed. Chicago wasn’t happy with the idea of moving Sunday’s game up to Saturday because it would have messed with the team’s starting rotation. “They never move games up and especially within a five-day window of a starting rotation,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said earlier in the week. “So we can’t have somebody ready to pitch on Saturday.”

Counsell won’t have to now after the league accommodated the Cubs and avoided a Saturday game.

Chicago and Boston will fly to St. Petersburg late Friday and have Saturday off before concluding the regular season Sunday.