why was Yankeees Orioles game called?
My husband the baseball fanatic, said they changed the rule this year. Games rained out after the 5th inning must be resumed and played out. Before that, the game has to be re-played.
No, the reason the game was a "suspended game" was due to Rule 4.12 (a) 5- a game is considered suspended if it is called while the inning is in progress, (it was), before the inning was completed(it was not completed), and the visiting team scored to take the lead(they did) and the home team had not retaken the lead( they hadn't). This rule was changed in 1980, not last year.
Before 1980, if the game was called in the middle of an inning, the score would revert to what it was BEFORE the inning started. In that case, the score would have been 6-4, Orioles, and they would have been declared the winner, regardless of how many runs the Yanks scored in their half of the inning.
Games rained out after the fifth inning ARE NOT automatically resumed and played out at a later date. If the 8th inning would have been completed, and the rains kept play from continuing, then the team with the lead would have won the game. The key to applying these rules is "what is the latest inning completed?", OR was the game called due to rain in the middle of an inning?
An interesting application of this "5 inning rule" came back to bite my Cleveland Indians in the rear this spring. The Tribe was leading 4-0, over the Seattle Mariners in the top of the 5th inning, 2 outs and 2 strikes. It had been raining on and off, a generally miserable day in Cleveland. One more strike, and the game becomes an official game. The manager of the Mariners, strolls slowly to the home plate umpire to complain that his hitter could not longer see the ball due to the rain. So the ump calls the game, and the game is wiped out. Boy, were we fans in Cleveland Po'd. Why didn't Hargrove complain at the beginning of the inning? Oh well, gamemanship at its finest.
