The game was delayed 1 hour 17 minutes before it was suspended; it will resume in the second inning Saturday at 8:37 p.m., with the score tied, 1-1. The pitchers, however, will no longer be Sabathia and Verlander.
Instead, Ivan Nova will face Doug Fister, and the Yankees will bat first, in the bottom of the second inning.
On Sunday, the scheduled off day, Game 2 will be played at 3:07 p.m. and Freddy Garcia will start against Max Scherzer, unless Sabathia can convince Yankees Manager Joe Girardi otherwise.
Sabathia, who threw 27 pitches before the rain stopped Friday’s game, said he wanted to pitch Sunday, which would still give him the chance to pitch twice in the series.
“Sure, if that means I get the ball as many times as possible,” Sabathia said. “I’m all for it.”
Girardi said he would check with Sabathia, but announced that Freddy Garcia would still pitch Monday’s Game 3 in Detroit. He also left open the possibility that A. J. Burnett would start Game 4 if Sabathia pitches Game 3.
Tigers Manager Jim Leyland said Verlander, who surrendered a run without giving up a hit in the first inning, would pitch Monday. Verlander, 24-5 with a 2.40 earned run average, conceded that he would only be able to pitch once in the series. If there had been no rain and the series went five games, he could have pitched in Game 5.
“Any way you slice it, it looks like I’ll only be able to go once in this series,” Verlander said. “To go on short rest after today is one thing, to then try and start again on short rest in Game 5 might be a little too much.”
One of the advantages the Yankees had in the series was the ability of Sabathia to pitch on three days’ rest, meaning he could have gone in Game 4. That is lost now.
“I don’t want to sit here and say if I don’t pitch, we can’t win,” Sabathia said. “Because we’ve been doing it all year.”
Sabathia surrendered a home run to Delmon Young in the first inning, but looked sharp. Rain started falling in the bottom of the first with Mark Teixeira at the plate, and grew more intense until the tarp finally was rolled out at 9:07 p.m., with heavy rains forecast for the rest of the night.
“Heck of a game,” Leyland said.
More rain could be coming on Saturday, and by now the Yankees are used to it. One of their games this season started after 11 p.m., and they played three games in three cities in three days during one stretch in September. On Saturday, the first day of October, fans will witness the strange sight of the Yankees coming to bat first at the Stadium.
The Yankees said they had 22 games affected by rain this season, more than any team. Nine were postponed and 13 others delayed. As the rescheduled games backed up, there were fewer days available to play other games, which meant long delays to force in games under wet conditions.
On Sept. 6, the Yankees waited until 11:08 p.m. to start a game against the Orioles because no more days were available for a makeup.
On Sept. 8, the Yankees were forced to use a scheduled off day to play the Orioles in the makeup of an Aug. 27 game that was rained out by Hurricane Irene. Then they were rained out on Sept. 23 against the Boston Red Sox, forcing a doubleheader two days later.
Even the final game of the regular season — in a dome against Tampa — seemed tethered to rain. That game went 12 innings, but ended only moments after the Red Sox-Orioles contest in Baltimore — which was, of course, delayed by rain.
“It’s been this way for us all year,” Derek Jeter said. “We kind of expect it by now.”
Joe Torre, the executive vice president for baseball operations for Major League Baseball, was at the Yankees-Tigers game and said the forecast was for light, intermittent showers. He was asked about the forecast for Saturday, which called for more rain.
“I’m going to be in Philadelphia tomorrow,” he said. “That would solve my problem.”
TRYING TO STAY RELAXED Since joining the Yankees in 2009, Nick Swisher has batted .148 in the postseason (12 for 81), including .176 in last year’s two playoff series. That poses a concern for the Yankees. Swisher has acknowledged that said he sometimes gets a little over-excited and antsy at the plate, and Joe Girardi said he was hoping Swisher would find a way to contain his emotions this time.
“My hope is we see a different Swish,” Girardi said.
Girardi said Swisher was working with Kevin Long, the Yankees’ hitting instructor, to try to limit the extra movement in his body associated with his swing. He said he noticed signs of improvement during the last regular-season trip to St. Petersburg against the Tampa Bay Rays.
“You hope it starts today and he doesn’t get too hyped up,” Girardi said. “That’s one of the biggest things you have to guard against in the postseason, because you think about all the teams, they are so evenly matched. A lot of times it’s the team that doesn’t try to do too much that ends up winning the whole thing.”
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