The Washington Nationals are headed to the playoffs, and they’ve been clear that they don’t want to have to pay for late-night Metro service when games run late in the post-season. But today D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) shed some light on why that may be.

Speaking on NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt, Evans said that MLB has claimed that paying for late-night service would set a bad precedent. “This is a tough one, Bruce…MLB is quite concerned about a precedent being set in this city,” he said. (WTOP’s Adam Tuss confirmed this with an unnamed Nats official.)

D.C. officials have said that they don’t intend on paying for the service, and note that other teams and event organizers pay $29,500 to open Metro an hour early or close it an hour later than usual. The Nats are among the few local teams that don’t have a standing arrangement with Metro to stay open whenever games might run late.

Evans also noted that he generally thinks that Metro should stay open after midnight on weekdays, and that the current standoff between D.C. and the Nats would soon be resolved: “I think we’ll get this issue resolved,” said Evans, who was one of the strongest proponents of a publicly funded stadium.

We’ve got in a call and email to MLB to get more details on what precedent the league fears could be set and where it would apply. (The Post’s Mike DeBonis has an idea.)

Note: The original post said that Evans had said that MLB had a policy against teams providing the late-night service. Evans didn’t say that; it was mistakenly stated in the tweet below. We’ve removed mention of the policy and kept what was said: that it would be a bad precedent for the Nats to pat for the service.

Filed Under: late-night, metro, MLB, nats, playoffs, service, trains, washington nationals, wmata,