Rain washes out American League Championship Series Game 6 between Yankees, Angels

NEW YORK -- Saturday was a day for watching big green blobs creep across radar screens, for conference calls with meteorologists and groundskeepers and Major League Baseball officials. It was a day for buying a $4 umbrella off a street vendor, getting a late lunch and heading to a stadium where you'd barely have time to change into your uniform before they'd be sending you back. Above all, it was a day for starting pitchers to bank an extra day of rest -- the critical development from Saturday's inaction that could change the complexion of the American League Championship Series.

It was not a day, or a night, for baseball at Yankee Stadium, where persistent rains -- and the threat of more of the same, all night long -- forced the postponement of Game 6 of the ALCS between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels until Sunday night, with the first pitch scheduled for 8:20 p.m.

The official announcement, a few minutes after 6 p.m. (or, some two hours before first pitch), was barely seconds old before the two critical questions were being asked: Would the Yankees, who lead 3-2 in the series, skip veteran lefty Andy Pettitte and pitch ace CC Sabathia, now on a full four days' rest, in Game 6? (The answer: No.) And would the Angels, should they survive Game 6, pitch ace John Lackey on three days' rest in Game 7 on Monday night. (The answer: Probably.)

As such, it was difficult to walk away from Yankee Stadium at the end of a soggy night without thinking the rainout benefited the Angels, seeing as how it brought their ace, Lackey, back into the picture for a possible third start in the series.

"If we get to him in Game 7," said Angels lefty Scott Kazmir, willing to say what others in the visiting clubhouse would not, "we're going to have a lot of confidence in that game, that's for sure."

The decision to call off the game, rather than set the teams up for a whole slew of bad possibilities -- start-and-stop action that burns up pitchers, a suspension of play, or playing conditions that border on travesty -- more than likely was informed, at least in part, by the rain-soaked experience of Game 5 of the 2008 World Series, which became the first suspended game in World Series history.

"You don't want to decide Game 6 [in conditions] like this," Kazmir said. "You saw what happened in the World Series last year. It wasn't pretty."

The Angels' official stance towards their pitching plans, as put forth by Manager Mike Scioscia and General Manager Tony Reagins, is that lefty Joe Saunders remains in line to start Game 6 on Sunday night -- with Lackey part of an all-hands-on-deck bullpen. Beyond that? Only Lackey himself would state the obvious: If the Angels survive to see Game 7, and Lackey isn't needed in relief in Game 6, it's his game.

"Hopefully I won't be needed tomorrow," Lackey said. "Hopefully, Joe will throw eight zeroes up there, and you might see me again."

Lackey's two previous starts in the series have delivered mixed results -- a 4-1 loss in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium, in which he was victimized by the Angels' leaky defense, and a no-decision in the Angels' comeback victory in Game 5 at Angel Stadium, in which he was working on a shutout in the seventh inning before encountering trouble. The lasting image of Lackey from that game was of him staring down Scioscia, as the latter came to take the ball, and saying to his manager, "No, this is my game."

"You know me," Lackey said Saturday. "I always want to be in the game as often as I can be in the game."

As for the Yankees, while it might have been tempting to skip Pettitte and hand the ball to their indomitable ace for Game 6 -- Sabathia is 3-0 with a 1.19 ERA this postseason -- there are plenty of reasons, both psychological and practical, why the correct call was to stay with Pettitte.

For starters, it is not as if Pettitte is Jered Weaver -- the right-hander who likely would have been the Angels' Game 7 starter before Saturday night's rainout happened. No offense to Weaver, a fine pitcher, but he doesn't have the 15 career postseason wins (tied for the most in history) or the emotional heft that comes with winning four World Series titles in the Bronx. And Pettitte, even at age 37, is no slouch; he went 14-8 with a 4.16 ERA this season.

"We like the guy going [Sunday]," Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said. "Andy has pitched in a ton of big, big games in his career. We just like him in this spot."

The practical reasons for the move are just as powerful: By holding Sabathia back, the Yankees give themselves -- by winning Game 6 -- a chance to have him on the mound for Games 1, 4 and (if necessary) 7 of the World Series, although the last two would be on short rest.

Of course, the Yankees can't admit their World Series pitching plans are a consideration -- "We're not looking ahead," Girardi cautioned -- but if it should work out that way, all the better.