After a rainout last night, the Detroit Tigers take on the New York Yankees in game two of their five-game series this afternoon...
Conspiracy?
Probably not intentionally, but there is some other importance to the possibility that the two teams could have played last night.
Should they have played? Hard to say. Could they have played? Most definitely.
It didn't start raining hard until three hours and seventeen minutes from when the first pitch was supposed to be thrown. The game could have been played and finished before it started raining too hard to play.
The operative words in that sentence, however, are could have. If the game were close, but not tied in the seventh or eighth inning, one team would have been screwed. If the Yankees were down two with Jeter, Giambi and Rodriguez coming up in the bottom half of the eighth when it started raining, they would have a lot to complain about. Do you call the game with the Tigers winning? Do you continue it the next day? Too many decisions to be made.
The right decision was to call the game. The wrong decision was waiting, and the even wronger decision (I know wronger is not a word) was to give a start time and then turn around and call the game. The Yankees probably lobbied for the game to be called from minute one, as it would be hard for the 37-year-old Mike Mussina to pitch in cold and wet weather.
But it would be just as hard for Justin Verlander and his fatigued shoulder to do the same. And for this reason, calling the game does not favor the Yankees, but it favors the Detroit Tigers. Mussina now has to get up and loosen up his arm early in the day--a day that is supposed to still be overcast and chilly. Verlander gets one more day of rest and another day to bounce back and pitch in the most important game of his life.
Verlander will be ready. He will feel no pain. He will pitch strongly and deep into the game. It will go Verlander for six (or seven) then Zumaya, and then Jones with a slim Tigers lead in the ninth.
And Jones will hang one to Giambi like he did three months ago.
The question is...will he get all of it?
