Phillies will have to wait

PHILADELPHIA | The Philadelphia Phillies have waited 25 years to win a world championship. Now they will have to wait at least another day. And it could be even longer.

Game 5 of the World Series was suspended Monday night after a storm dumped rain on the Citizens Bank Park field with increasing force throughout the game. It was the first time a World Series game ever had started and not gone at least nine innings.

MLB called the game at 11:10 p.m., 30 minutes after a rain delay started before the bottom of the sixth inning with the game tied at 2-2. It will resume in the bottom of the sixth no earlier than 8 p.m. on Tuesday, although the forecast for Tuesday night called for more rain and wind upward of 30 mph.

The Phillies lead the series 3-1 and could have clinched a title Monday night.

“It will be resumed when I believe that weather conditions are appropriate,” commissioner Bud Selig said. “And as I’ve told everybody tonight after the game, while we’re at a time of the year where ideal conditions don’t always exist, I’m going to be very sensitive and thorough to make sure we don’t have a situation like we had.”

Both teams had been scheduled to fly to St. Petersburg, Fla., on Tuesday for a potential Game 6, and the switch was so abrupt that the Tampa Bay Rays already had checked out of their hotel in Philadelphia. Team president Matt Silverman said the team couldn’t even find rooms for an extra night directly in the city. But it was better than the alternative - crowning the Phillies champions in a shortened game.

MLB rule 4.12.6 states that a game is official after 4 1/2 innings with the home team ahead, and Philadelphia had a 2-1 lead heading into the sixth. If it had been a regular-season game and had Tampa Bay not scored to tie the game in the sixth, MLB could have ended the game and declared the Phillies the winner.

But Selig said he “was not going to allow [a shortened game] to happen.”

The teams had discussed that scenario before Saturday’s Game 3, which was delayed roughly 90 minutes by rain, and agreed that the game would be delayed until it could be finished in at least nine innings.

“It’s my judgment. This is not a way to end the World Series,” Selig said.

Tampa Bay tied the game in the sixth inning on a two-out Carlos Pena single to center that scored B.J. Upton from second. Upton veered wide around third, nearly stepping into the grass outside of the base, and slid into home plate ahead of Carlos Ruiz’s tag.

And as a bonus, the suspension also means the Rays head into Tuesday having survived Phillies ace Cole Hamels.

The left-hander, who was bidding to finish the postseason 5-0 and possibly earn World Series MVP honors, was cruising through the first three innings. But as the rain picked up into the fourth inning, so did a Rays offense that had been without traction for most of the series.

First, Carlos Pena doubled off the right-field wall, a shot that came inches from going out of the park. Then Evan Longoria followed with a single to left, scoring Pena. To that point, the two Rays sluggers were a combined 0-for-31 in the series.

The rain bore on through the middle innings, a five- to six-minute delay between each half-inning for the grounds crew to apply new dirt to the infield now becoming commonplace. A puddle formed on home plate in the top of the sixth. Pop flies twisted like kites in the wind. Even the simplest acts became an adventure.

If Hamels was laboring to keep the Phillies’ lead, Rays starter Scott Kazmir already had bowed out of the elements by the time things got treacherous.

He walked two batters and hit another during a 29-pitch first inning that netted two Phillies runs, both on Shane Victorino’s single to left. Though he wouldn’t give up another run, Kazmir paid for his wildness with an early exit.

He lasted just two batters into the fifth inning. His six walks were the most by a pitcher in a World Series game since Livan Hernandez walked eight in Game 5 of the 1997 series. And by the time he put Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell on base to start the fifth inning, Kazmir already had thrown 103 pitches.

He was followed by Grant Balfour, who Rays manager Joe Maddon said will be on the mound when Game 5 resumes. James Shields and Matt Garza are scheduled to pitch Games 6 and 7 if necessary, and Maddon said he won’t put the starters in to finish Game 5.

The Phillies likely will approach the game the same way.

“Naturally, we’re not happy that Hamels is out of the game,” general manager Pat Gillick said. “But one of the strengths of our ballclub is the bullpen. So that’s where it will kind of be fought here in Game 5.”