The weather intervened to cut what should have been a Philadelphia triumph short:
PHILADELPHIA — A city that has waited a quarter-century for a major professional sports championship will have to wait even longer. The fifth game of the World Series was suspended in the middle of the sixth inning at Citizens Bank Park on Monday night, with the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays tied, 2-2.
The Phillies, who lead the series by three games to one, were 10 outs from clinching a title in a driving rain. But the Rays tied the score in the top of the sixth, and before the bottom of the inning, the tarp was finally pulled over the infield.
The game was suspended at 11:10 p.m., after a 30-minute delay, making it the first World Series game to start and not last at least nine innings. The game is scheduled to be resumed Tuesday at 8 p.m., picking up where it left off on Monday.
Commissioner Bud Selig said that under no circumstances would the Phillies have won the game — and the Series — before the completion of nine innings. He also did not want the game or the Series decided in dangerous playing conditions, even though the game had started and the forecast calls for rain — and even snow — until Thursday.
“I would not have allowed a World Series to end this way,” Selig said.
The Phillies did not want to win the championship with a five-inning victory, either.
“I truly think that would have been the worst World Series win in the face of baseball,” said Phillies starter Cole Hamels, who threw just 75 pitches over six innings. “I would not pride myself on being a world champion with a called game.”
The game will resume with Hamels scheduled to hit for the Phillies against Tampa Bay reliever Grant Balfour. Rays Manager Joe Maddon said he expected the game to resume on Tuesday or Wednesday, though the immediate priority for the Rays was to find new lodging — they checked out of their downtown hotel on Monday.
“We’re looking into other accommodations,” the Rays’ president, Matt Silverman, said. “I think we have them. It may not be within Philadelphia proper, but it should be close.”
Given the weather forecast, the odds of getting the game in today don’t seem very good.
