Friday, June 27, 2008
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com
Peter Diana/Post-Gazette
Xavier Nady pokes his head out of the dugout to check the weather durig a rain delay last night at PNC Park. The game against the Yankees was postponed in the third inning and will be replayed July 10.
The New York Yankees will make one more visit, as it turns out, in just two weeks.
The Pirates and Yankees were postponed by rain and lightning last night at PNC Park, with the Yankees leading by 3-1 with two outs in the top of the third inning. After a delay of 2 1/2 hours, despite a pause in the poor weather, the threat of more rain prompted the game to be called.
"We knew it was going to be a long haul," Pirates manager John Russell said. "It let up, then kept coming."
Thus, the rubber match of this three-game series will be played July 10, 7:05 p.m., and, if the Pirates' new rotation plan is followed, Phil Dumatrait would start. Tickets purchased for the game last night will be honored July 10, or they can be exchanged for any other game the rest of the season except the Aug. 14-16 SkyBlast events.
The teams' only other common open date was Sept. 22, the day after the final game in Yankee Stadium history.
The Yankees had extra scheduling pressure, too, as they will play an unusual doubleheader today in New York, with a 2 p.m. home game against the crosstown Mets and an 8:10 p.m. nightcap against the Mets at Shea Stadium. The afternoon game is the makeup of another rainout.
"It was going to rain again," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "We can't stay here until 2 or 3 in the morning, then play a day-night doubleheader. It made sense to bang it."
The fans were not the only ones inconvenienced.
New York pitcher Dan Giese, scheduled to start the Yankees' first game today, was at Pittsburgh International Airport yesterday afternoon to fly home ahead of the team for some rest. He was told his 4 p.m. flight would be delayed an hour, so he went to get something to eat and was back at the gate at 4:30.
"The plane was gone,'' he said. "They said they paged me. I didn't hear it.''
He was rebooked on a 6 p.m. flight. That never left because of the bad weather.
"It was pretty chaotic,'' he said.
He then returned to PNC Park by 10 p.m. to learn the game had been called.
The capper?
Had play resumed last night, Giese would have been used in relief of starter Mike Mussina, who had pitched the first two innings.
"You look at the first game, and we showed we could compete with them," Russell said. "In the second, we learned that they're a pretty good club. It was a tale of two games, really. And this one, who knows what would have happened?"
There was another indelible impression, too: The capacity crowd last night -- no attendance will be announced until the game is in the books -- would have broken by about 2,000 the ballpark record for a three-game series, that being the 113,144 of Aug. 10-12, 2001, against the San Diego Padres.
And, even though that occurred almost entirely as a result of the opponent, even though some came to cheer the opponent, the electric atmosphere for baseball was something that had not been seen in these parts in recent memory.
It certainly seemed to catch the attention of new management.
"It's fun to see the ballpark full and mostly filled with passionate Pirates fans," team president Frank Coonelly said. "This shows us what we knew, and that's that baseball is not dead in Pittsburgh. The fans are dying for us to be good, and they want to support us. When they're convinced that we've got a plan and that plan can be successful, they're going to be behind us 100 percent."
And how might experiencing that hunger for a winner -- not in the future but now -- affect new management when it decides whether to keep this team intact or trade for prospects?
"The question is a good one," Coonelly replied. "We've said all along that we can't lose sight of the fact that we're building for the long term. Having said that, we've also said that we're excited about this 2008 team, and we think they can do great things, including competing for championships. And we've seen enough to suggest that we might not be crazy."
He laughed.
"We've seen how these guys compete. Every time they fall into a lull and people want to bury us, we come right back. We keep competing against the best teams in baseball."
Russell said the Pirates' players fed off the support.
"It was great, how the fans were into it, involved with every pitch," he said. "It was a neat atmosphere. I know that's a corny term, but that's what it was. It meant a lot to our guys."
The Pirates' average crowd before this series was 17,055.
Paul Maholm got off to an awful start last night, giving up three doubles and a triple to New York's first four batters - Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu with the triple, and Alex Rodriguez - in a span of just 13 pitches to spot the Yankees a 3-0 head start.
The Pirates answered off Mussina in the bottom half, but not as much as they would have liked: Freddy Sanchez's double and Jason Bay's walk were followed by Ryan Doumit's RBI shot through the left side. One out later, Adam LaRoche walked to load the bases, but Jose Bautista flied out.
Each pitcher settled from the there, but the rain soon came.
No statistics count.
Right fielder Xavier Nady rejoined the Pirates' lineup after missing 10 games to a bruised left shoulder and struck out in his lone at-bat.
Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@post-gazette.com.
First published on June 27, 2008 at 12:00 am
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