We've already gone through one rain delay. It came in the top of the fifth, after Ramon Santiago led off the inning with a double. That delay lasted from something like 8:42 to 9:20 local time.
Rangers vs. Tigers: Detroit Scores, Then Uh Oh More Rain!
The game then resumed with C.J. Wilson still on the mound, and Wilson went and got himself into a big ol' mess. After getting Brandon Inge to ground out, Wilson allowed Austin Jackson to line the ball the other way for an RBI double. Ryan Raburn followed with a walk, and Miguel Cabrera followed Raburn's walk with a walk of his own. All of a sudden, the bases were loaded, with the tying run in scoring position.
And then Wilson threw a wild pitch. Or rather, he threw a pitch wildly low and inside, and Mike Napoli couldn't catch it cleanly, and the ball rolled far enough away for all the runners to advance. Just like that, it was 3-2.
Wilson made a big pitch, though, throwing a 1-2 cutter to Victor Martinez that Martinez tapped back to the mound. Wilson looked back the runners before throwing Martinez out, and so there were two down, and Magglio Ordonez coming up.
And then...uh...
Well, Ordonez was intentionally walked to load the bases so that Wilson could face Alex Avila. Now, there's a handedness component here. Ordonez bats righty, Avila bats lefty, and Wilson throws lefty. Ron Washington was just playing the platoons. But Ordonez is also bad, while Avila is good, and plus Wilson had been throwing an awful lot of balls. To this objective observer, it seemed like a pretty bad idea.
And then it started to rain again. Really bad.
And so we’re into another rain delay. Ordonez walked, and then we went into a delay, before Wilson had a chance to pitch to Avila. Wilson might still pitch to Avila at the other end of this delay, depending on a few things (weather guy says this delay shouldn’t be long), but it’s funny the way things work out, as one could interpret this delay as God expressing his disappointment with Ron Washington’s in-game strategy.
3-2 Rangers, top of the fifth, bases loaded, two out. It's been the top of the fifth for way more than an hour.
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