The Los Angeles Dodgers don’t deal with rain delays often with the majority of their games in California and on the West Coast, but they were forced to endure two during their first two games against the Washington Nationals.
On Friday, the two clubs made it to the seventh inning before play had to be stopped due to rain. The game resumed 1 hour and 34 minutes later before the Dodgers closed out an 8-5 victory.
On Saturday, they were scheduled to begin play at 1:05 p.m. PT, but a four-hour and 10-minute rain delay pushed the start time back to 5:15 p.m., so players had to wait it.
With such a long delay and few updates along the way, players weren’t totally sure how to pass the time and took it upon themselves to stay prepared for the game while not wasting too much energy, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts discussed via Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:
“It was I think every man for himself right there,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of passing the time. “There was probably too much eating going on. There might have been some sleeping. Some chatter. Some guys getting antsy and taking swings and trying to get ready.
“There was a lot of uncertainty as far as when we were going to start this game. But we were pretty sure we were gonna play it tonight.”
For rookies James Outman and Bobby Miller, they had never experienced a delay like that, so it was a new experience to their careers:
“The delay was long,” Dodgers rookie James Outman said, short but accurate in his recap.
But the delay even presented problems for the veterans, including Max Muncy, who was conflicted on what to do without any set timeframe for when the game could start:
“We kind of just watched football,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “Every hour, we were told we were getting another update. If you know it’s going to be a couple hours, you can go take a nap, eat, whatever. But when you don’t know – do you eat? Do you not eat? Do you hit in the cage or do you wait?”
Thankfully for Muncy, his Alma mater Baylor University was playing the University of Utah during the delay, although they suffered a loss on a controversial final play in the end zone.
With the 8:15 p.m. local time start, the game didn’t end until 11:30 p.m. after going to extra innings, putting both teams in another tough position with a day game on Sunday, and the potential for another rain delay at some point.
Dodgers rallied but fell short
The Dodgers rallied for three runs in the final two innings to pull even and send the game to extra innings. Both teams traded runs in the 10th before the Dodgers were unable to cash in their free runner during the 11th.
The Nationals then scored the game-winning run with two outs on a wild pitch from Gus Varland to walk-off with a 7-6 victory.
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