THE WAITING GAME: The grounds crew rolls out the tarp at Comerica Park last night, postponing ALCS Game 4 in Detroit until this afternoon. (N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg)
DETROIT – At 9:45 p.m., the field was still dry as a bone, the stands at Comerica Park empty and the clubhouses quiet. The tarpaulin was stretched tight over the infield, held in place by nine riding lawnmowers.
On the computer screens a wide, ominous splotch of green kept growing, covering large portions of southern Michigan and northern Ohio, insisted that the city was about to meet a storm of Hollywood scale. Locals with friends on the outskirts of the city reported vicious sheets of rain, enough that you could hear them with their Forrest Gump forecasts of doom:
Little bitty stinging rain … and big ol’ fat rain … rain that flew in sideways … and rain that seemed to come from underneath …
Only one thing was missing:
Rain.
Ten o’clock came and went, and the Yankees were already gone, and the Tigers, and so the elements had done something for the Yankees that they hadn’t been able to do for themselves: buy them an extra day. Slow down the momentum that seemed to be carrying them inexorably to the first teebox of winter.
“I don’t know if this is going to help us,” said Curtis Granderson, who wasn’t going to play last night anyway, even if they’d decided to play this game in the dry, arid conditions, if they hadn’t been scared away by the prospect of The Weather Channel’s dean of doom, Jim Cantore, showing up at the press entrance door.
“But it probably won’t hurt us.”
Actually, it may have done a little of both. The idea of being ultra cautious with rain in surrounding neighborhoods goes back to 2008, to the Phillies-Rays World Series that was trampled by weather, Game 5 fractured in two. Bud Selig declared there and then that the five- and six-inning sawed-off games that sometimes infect the 162-game regular season would never again appear in postseason.
So now, there are times when perfectly temperate evenings pass with no baseball. That happened last October in St. Louis, when World Series Game 6 was postponed with barely a drop of rain on the ground (meaning the Rangers had to wait an extra 24 hours to have their hearts stomped on … twice).
And it happened here. By 10:05, the rain did start to fall. That projects to the bottom of the fifth inning or so. CC Sabathia, if all had gone right, would have been about 70 or so pitches deep into his night. And if the skies opened up … and if the Yankees’ bats had remained as passive as they’ve been … and if the score was 1-1 or so …
Well, then the Yankees likely would’ve lost Sabathia, and with him the last few breaths of life in their season.
Of course, the rainout robs the series of its second travel day. So if Sabathia does beat the Tigers this afternoon, and if Andy Pettitte does drag the Yankees home in Game 5 tomorrow, and if Hiroki Kuroda does get them even in Game 6 Saturday, then Sabathia wouldn’t be available to start Game 7, would only be able to come in for some emergency relief, and …
And, well, if it plays out that way, the Yankees will be gleeful.
“Just win one game,” Joe Girardi had said earlier in the day, “and then you can win another game. And you take it from there.”
The weather – or least the rumor of weather – bought the Yankees an extra day in Detroit, and while that might never be considered anyone’s definition of a jackpot grand prize, in this case it was better than a winning Irish Sweepstakes ticket.
The delay doesn’t fix what ails this dysfunctional team, of course. Alex Rodriguez has officially been left out in the rain like the cake in MacArthur Park, and it certainly seems possible that he may have taken his final at-bat as a Yankee. Derek Jeter’s three-month ankle rehab is now a five-month rehab, and there are never any guarantees when you’re talking about a 38-year-old ankle.
And, of course, the rain – which finally arrived in earnest around 10:15 or so, finally matching the pretty satellite pictures – couldn’t wash away that 0-3 hole which remains exactly as is this morning. Which is OK. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometime it rains.
And sometimes you get the oddest gift of all: a welcome extra night in Detroit.