Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Game 33: Tigers at Nats

Photo by Mark Zuckerman / NATS INSIDER
The Nats and Tigers open a two-game series ... if the rain stops.
OK, let's cut right to the chase, because I know this is the question everyone is asking: Will they play tonight? The answer: I don't know yet. Obviously, it doesn't look good, with a gigantic mass of rain hovering over the Mid-Atlantic and showing no signs of disintegrating before 7 p.m. And obviously both the Nationals and Tigers have Thursday off, with the Nats staying in town for the weekend and Detroit only making the short trip home to play Friday night. So there's a very easy makeup game solution. But for now, nothing has been announced. I'll let you know as soon as I know. Promise.

If they do play, Jordan Zimmermann will be on the mound for the Nationals, trying to extend his streak of consecutive scoreless innings that already stands at 18. He'll have to do it against the AL's best lineup, though, one that features perhaps the most potent 3-4 combo in baseball in Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder. One slight advantage for the Nats: Because this interleague series is taking place in the NL park, the Tigers won't have regular DH Victor Martinez.

Anibal Sanchez, owner of a career 8-0 record and 1.97 ERA against the Nationals, starts for Detroit. He'll face a lineup that isn't expected to include Jayson Werth, still dealing with a tight hamstring that probably wouldn't respond well to a wet field tonight.

Updates — most importantly weather-related ones — to come, so please check back...

DETROIT TIGERS at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 7:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv, MLB Network (outside D.C. market)
Radio: WJFK (106.7 FM), WFED (1500 AM), XM 89
Weather: Rain, 65 degrees, Wind 11 mph in from RF
NATIONALS (17-15)
Lineup TBA
RHP Jordan Zimmermann

TIGERS (19-11)
CF Austin Jackson
RF Torii Hunter
3B Miguel Cabrera
1B Prince Fielder
LF Andy Dirks
SS Jhonny Peralta
C Alex Avila
2B Omar Infante
RHP Anibal Sanchez

UMPIRES
TBA

54 comments:

SonnyG10 said...

Oh boy, a new thread.

Eric said...

Sure hope there's a ballgame tonight!

baseballswami said...

Worst spring weather -- ever! There were games getting snowed out last week still. Does anyone keep stats on such things as weather-related postponements? Sure seems to be a bad start to the season and we have been relatively lucky. Mostly just cold. Have they at least let you know when they might decide?" I would say that tomorrow's game is not a lock to be played either.

Eric said...

It definitely seems possible that there will be a doubleheader Thursday or a make up game or two later in the season.

baseballswami said...

Schedule question -- are we only playing the Tigers twice this season? Or are we playing them four times in Detroit?

SCNatsFan said...

I hope they play. I have nothing to do tonight and have to kill until Deadliest Catch comes on. I hope they take my feelings into account when making their decision.

Section 222 said...

Two times in Detroit, July 30 and 31. My prediction -- today's game is called. They play single games tomorrow and Thursday. No one wants to play a doubleheader if they can avoid it.

bell jr said...

I was looking forward to the Zimmerman vs. Sanchez match-up tonight. Tomorrow looks like they will be able to get that one in. Each report comes in with the worst stuff clearing out by tomorrow morning.

Get Your Re(n)d On said...

Nats play Tigers two games in DC this week and two games in Detroit July 30-31.

Ishmael said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Faraz Shaikh said...

Precipitation chance is going down so I am guessing we will have a game tonight.

baseballswami said...

cool - thanks! Ok - so here is my selfish reasons for wanting a rain out: I got some tickets for Christmas - no choice in the dates and it's been a little hairy trying to schedule it. But - hey, we sacrifice for our team, right? So, anyway -- my favorite Nat is Jordan and he has been since he was drafted. So what happens with my tickets? Every game so far is Haren - just narrowly missing both Jordan, and Det, who I also like. To be fair, we have won both games Haren pitched that I went to , but, there it is. So - I have tickets for tomorrow night, Haren again. But if this game is called, I get Jordan! In Prince William county in NOVA it is deluging. Has been buckets for a while now. Don't know about DC, but pretty bad here.

Get Your Re(n)d On said...

If they play a doubleheader tomorrow, it could be Jordan pitching the first game and Haren pitching the second. And if it's a day-night doubleheader, separate tickets would be required. You could still be screwed, baseballswami.

Candide said...

baseballswami said...

Worst spring weather -- ever! There were games getting snowed out last week still. Does anyone keep stats on such things as weather-related postponements?


There was a season where it seemed we were getting a rainout every week. Remember Manny Acta commenting on it. Don't remember what year it was, might have been '08.

Eric said...

It does look like it might lull for the next few hours, but pick back up sometime between 8 and 10. If the game does get underway, it's unlikely any rain delays will be temporary...

NatsLady said...

Eric (sorry about the "K"), it's now an hour and half later and other blogs have been updated with later posts--mine not! Once a post gets stuck in this purgatory it never comes out... I've waited days for posts to emerge and they don't. I tried going back to "draft" and republishing (sometimes that works). Nope. I'm out of ideas and any thoughts would be appreciated.

baseballswami said...

But seriously -- so glad Jayson is not playing on that field. I don't care how good the grounds crew it, it's going to be sloppy. Not on an iffy hammy. Of course, he is not the only one.

A DC Wonk said...

My latest Wonkling texts.

These are from Sunday. As you can see, she's texting me in the first inning. She's panicked.

A father hates to see that, right? So I told her (I was out doing errands, listening to the game on the radio) to turn off the tv for a while.

Of course she didn't. And she got the last laugh when the Nats won.

(http://s24.postimg.org/el3ti9npx/temp.jpg)

A DC Wonk said...

Oddities in yesterday's play:

- Mark DeRosa has homered in back-to-back games (and despite only 39 plate appearances, is 4th on the Jays in RBI's)

- Uggla tripled in back-to-back games. Atlanta, for the season as a team, has two triples.

- Jordan Danks was the potential winning run and was picked-off as a pinch-runner -- then he hit the go-ahead home run in extra innings.

Eric said...

"Once a post gets stuck in this purgatory it never comes out... I've waited days for posts to emerge and they don't."

Just to be clear, which one of these describes what you're talking about:

Scenario A:
Publish Post A on Monday
Publish Post B on Monday
Publish Post C on Tuesday
Post C shows up; A and B never do.

or

Scenario B:
Publish Post A
Three days later, Post A still hasn't showed up

If scenario A is what you're experiencing, that makes sense, because I'm guessing the crawler always pulls the most recent post when it's your site's turn to be crawled. If you post more than once between crawls, only the most recent will show up in the blog roll, and the interim posts will be stuck in purgatory ;).

If scenario B is the case, then that's weird indeed.

If it's A, let's throw other blogs into it:

You publish an article at 1:30 p.m.
Nationals Journal publishes an article at 2:15 p.m.

Nationals Journal is ahead of you in the crawling order. It gets crawled at 2:45 and the post from 2:15 shows up. You get crawled at 5 p.m. and your post from 1:30 shows up.

Does all that makes sense? FWIW, I can't prove for sure this is what's happening, I'm just surmising it based on what I know about programming and interfacing with tools like this.

In any case, if Scenario A above is what you experience, I say just hang tight until tomorrow afternoon and see what happens. If nationals.com or Let Teddy win get a post in before you, that would essentially debunk my theory.

Get Your Re(n)d On said...

"Dave said...

Thanks, Steady. I'll need to pay really close attention to when the rainout game is played.

Based on my recent (frustrating) experience with a game-swap,one would have to submit the exchange request before the made-up game; else the ticket would turn into RCR points, which, of course, wouldn't be worth nearly as much as the original ticket."

A rain check is a different thing than a STH ticket exchange. In the paper ticket world, when a game gets rained out your ticket turns into a rain check. You can either use that rain check to gain admittance to the rescheduled game, or you can exchange it for an equivalent seat at another game. If you choose to exchange, you don't have to do it before the rescheduled game is played, you can do it any time before the end of the season. If you try to exchange after the rescheduled game was played, they can tell whether you used your rain check to get into that game, and if you did the rain check is no longer valid for exchange.

I would expect things to work the same way in the new world of smart cards.

Anonymous said...

I bet they get this one in. They play through rain, as long as it's not hard rain or thunderstorms. Especially if they're already a couple innings in. Radar shows lots of light green with only a smattering of the harder stuff.

EmDash said...

With Zimm and Sanchez pitching, it may end up being a short game anyway. His last few starts have clocked in at less than two and a half hours.

NatsLady said...

It's Scenario B. That's what makes it mystifying. Some posts just never show up. Period. And they don't show up in an RSS feed reader, the only way you can get to thim is to go to the actual blogspot.

Dave said...

I think it was 2010 that was insanely rained out. Seemed like every home stand had a rainout or delay. I'm doing the "do-I-drive-in-or-not" dance right now.

NatsLady said...

CSN Washington ‏@CSNwashington 1m
#NationalsTalk RT @chasehughesCSN: Today's game will be made up Thursday at 4:05 pm. #Nats

Unknown said...

I am sorry, I understand that the Nats have to try and play every game, but these spring showers are a pay and they have to be better in giving fans warning on when there is and not a game.
It's 4:45, I live in Leesburg and frankly need some better warning because it's hard to get to Nats Stadium this time of day.
So by waiting like this, I will decide on my own that I don't want to travel all this distance to either wait until late for the start of the game or it not happening.
Does anyone have an answer to days like today???

NatsLady said...

Amanda Comak ‏@acomak 1m
Davey Johnson said the #nats have been informed that Bryce Harper will not be fined or suspended for his ejection on Sunday in Pitt.

Unknown said...

Postponed. Make up Thursday

Joe Seamhead said...

Game is postponed. This was a promo game with a Nats Backpack. I wonder if the promo will be given out Weds or Thursday? My grandsons were looking forward to us getting them for them, but no biggie.

baseballswami said...

Wah, wah. No game. But no time out for Bryce either. Two days off -- rest or rust?

Eric said...

OK NatsLady, the I checked the RSS Feed itself and it appears that the missing articles are indeed in there.

The fact that they're there but fail to show up leads me to believe that there are XML formatting errors in the posts that don't make it in. Most likely, the formatting errors are related to illegal HTML characters that trip up the RSS reader's XML parser.

I noticed that the Injury Daze is *very* light on tables and other formatted content, whereas the posts before and after that one are *very* heavy on such things. The more formatting going on, especially if you're using text editors instead of hand coding posts, the more likely there are to be artifacts that trip up the XML parsers.

Have you noticed a correlation between the number of formatted elements (e.g., tables) and posts that don't make it into the blog roll?

Eric said...

"I think it was 2010 that was insanely rained out. "

iirc, that was the spring where it rained basically everyday from like April 1 - June 30. I think that year and the year before or after. It was crazy!

Rabbit34 said...

Salvatore......STAY HOME. The chances are if the game is started, I agree that there will be long rain delays and you will wish you stayed home. If it is plain called off, you get to see it another day.

Eric said...

Game is already called off, Rabbit. DEFINITELY stay home folks ;).

John C. said...

Shazzbat. I had tickets for tonight and was looking forward to seeing JZ vs. the Tiger's lineup, but will be traveling the rest of the week. There ain't no justice!

Anonymous said...

MLB site lists Nats-Tigers as postponed

Bart said...

Hey Mark, do you know where to get shirts with that Steal Your Face that you use for your avatar?

Bart said...

Eric, that is.

Ghost Of Steve M. said...

Orioles are playing in Baltimore and haven't cancelled. Gates open.

SonnyG10 said...

Eric, I marvel at your diagnostic skills. Sure hope you can help NatsLady with her blog roll.

EmDash said...

The rain seems to have slowed down a lot, so it's strange. Maybe the Nats are trying to trick the Tigers into skipping Sanchez's turn in the rotation. *g*

Eric said...

Bart, as far as I know, it only exists because I merged the logos myself...

I would be happy to buy an official shirt with it if it ever came to be...

Ghost Of Steve M. said...

Huge difference with how Angelos treats his fanbase.

Eric said...

Thanks SonnyG...I come by it via banging my head against many walls of code over the years ;).

I hope I can help, too.

Joe Seamhead said...

John C, I feel for you. That really stinks. Maybe however you end up exchanging them it will work out good for you. Good luck!

SonnyG10 said...

OMG, we've got sunshine here in Reston. It better rain or I'm going to be in a snit for having to miss a game. Oh, well. I have one of the Pittsburg games on DVR I can re-watch.

Eric said...

Os and Royals have a 3 game series so can't as easily absorb a postponement as us...especially with tomorrow looking dicey.

Steady Eddie said...

DV -- Actually, per the Nats site for this postponement, http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130507&content_id=46869864&vkey=pr_was&c_id=was,
it's much worse than you even described.

"All Red Carpet Rewards tickets, Group tickets, Mini Plan tickets, Flex Plan tickets or single game tickets to tonight's postponed contest will be valid for the May 9 game at 4:05 p.m. No exchanges or refunds will be issued."

I've never heard of a single-game ticket that couldn't be exchanged before the game date for another, later game (except for understandable end-of-season limitations).

Get Your Re(n)d On said...

"Does anyone have an answer to days like today???"

Move to a town where they play in a dome.

Get Your Re(n)d On said...

"Ghost Of Steve M. said...

Huge difference with how Angelos treats his fanbase."

The difference today is that it hasn't rained as much in Baltimore as it has in DC. The weather is moving from south to north, slowly. On MLB Network this afternoon, they had live look-ins to both Nationals Park and Camden Yards. At Nats Park, Charlie Slowes was standing under an umbrella in pouring rain. In Baltimore, players were stretching and working out on the field.

Section 222 said...

Steady, I agree with you about rainchecks. I've already emailed my rep to ask if they really are going to deny single game purchasers the right to exchanges (refunds, of course, have never been issued for rainouts).

I assume that future game exchanges is how cardholders will turn in their May 9 tickets for other games. (I'm sure there are a lot of people who planned to go tonight but can't go on Thursday afternoon.) Since future exchanges are handled manually that shouldn't be a problem. Another issue, of course, is that some games aren't available for a future exchange. I guess I don't have a problem if they want to enforce that limitation.

I'll let you know if my rep shines any light on this.

Steady Eddie said...

DV -- the other part is that the weather map shows some rain in Baltimore at about 8, and then a huge thunderstorm from about 9:45 until 11. They'll probably play through the early sprinkles but there'll be a LONG delay to finish the game.

Irony is that the forecast for SE DC now shows little chance of anything here other than a thin band of rain at about 10:30. I'm sure this was based on exactly what Davey said, the desire by both teams not to start and then stop a game in the early innings.

But the forecase looks a lot worse for tomorrow night than it does for tonight. And they can't do a day-nighter with separate admissions unless they start tonight's game at 1 pm and the second at 7. Which they don't want to do to let the Tigers get back to Detroit Thursday night.

Section 222 said...

If necessary, they could do a single admission DH on Thursday (boy would that throw the card system into a tizzy!). The Tigers can always fly back late. They have a night game at home on Friday. And then there's that off day on June 3....

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