Mother Nature returned to the Yankees what she took away earlier this month by turning the Yankee Stadium field tarp into a slow-moving wall of concrete with a heavy rain that softened the infield to the point managers Ron Washington and Joe Girardi believed the field was unplayable.
Having lost a rain-shortened game in Baltimore on the final day before the All-Star break, the Yankees won under similar circumstances Wednesday evening when they handed Yu Darvish and the Rangers a 2-1 defeat in front of 37,585 that goes into the books as a 4 ½-inning victory.
“We were kind of owed this one after for what happened in Baltimore before the break,’’ said Brett Gardner, whose solo homer in the third turned out to be the game-winner.
David Phelps (5-4) went five innings and allowed a run on five hits, good enough to qualify him for the win. The run he gave up scored in the third, but the Rangers sacrificed two outs to get it when Rougned Odor banged into a double play with runners at the corners.
“It’s the same thing that happened in Baltimore but the tarp went on [there],’’ Phelps said. “It’s a big win for us.’’
The win puts the Yankees in position to take three of four from the lowly Rangers Thursday afternoon.
Play was halted at 8:46 p.m. with the Yankees leading 2-1 and one out in the home fifth. The rain came so hard the grounds crew struggled to get the field covered — taking 14 minutes to do so — and quickly the dirt part of the infield was soaked.
At 9:50 it was announced the game would resume at 10:05 and at that time Darvish was tossing lightly from the mound as Washington and Girardi talked to the umpires and head groundskeeper Dan Cunningham near first base.
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Darvish then walked off the mound, returned to the hill to throw and then came off again. He played catch near the third-base line and then stopped throwing altogether.
As players lingered in and near the dugouts, nobody worked on the field and the rain returned. Darvish was among the Rangers hanging out on the field.
At 10:24 p.m. a water-logged tarp was rolled out to cover the field as crew chief Dale Scott talked with Girardi near home plate while the rain intensified.
“There were some tarp issues. That combined with the massive amounts of rain in a very short amount of time that field was inundated with water,’’ said Scott, who talked with MLB headquarters and finally called the game after a 1-hour, 49-minute delay. “It looked good, but once we walked a little bit it was very soft. Both managers had a concern about that.’’
Since it was at home it was an official game and one night after the Yankees used seven relievers in a 14-inning victory, the conspiracy theorists believed the grounds crew could have covered the field quicker.
The Yankees scored twice in the third and the methods were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Francisco Cervelli, who doubled twice in two at-bats, opened with a two-bagger into the left-field corner, moved to third on Brendan Ryan’s grounder to the right side and scored when Scott called a balk on Darvish with Gardner at the plate.
On a 3-1 pitch, Gardner launched his career-high 10th homer for a 2-1 advantage.
“He is one of the best in the game,’’ Gardner said of Darvish. “I got a pitch to hit and got a good swing on it.’’
The victory moved the Yankees to within 3 ½ games of the first place Orioles, who played in Anaheim Wednesday night.
“We lost a game like this in Baltimore and I was extremely disappointed,’’ Girardi said. “It’s good for us but you don’t want to ever feel you didn’t get a chance to finish a game.’’
Girardi disagreed with those who believed the grounds crew could have gotten the tarp on quicker.
“The grounds crew did everything they could and Mother Nature took over,’’ said the manager, whose club now is even with her.