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The Mariners’ game Friday night in Oakland against the A’s was postponed because the infield went uncovered during an overnight rain, leaving it unplayable. The game was postponed until 1:05 p.m. Saturday, with Felix Hernandez getting the start as the new No. 5 starter, Chris Young, gets skipped.
As groundskeepers worked, there was some doubt that the field would be ready by Saturday. That helped make the decision to abandon the earlier idea of a Saturday doubleheader.
The rain wasn’t much, about a third of an inch, but it was enough to overwhelm the Coliseum, the majors’ most dilapidated ballpark, where sewage backed up last season after a Mariners-A’s game.
The A’s vice president of ballpark operations, Dave Rinetti, released a statement after the game was postponed:
“Over the last week we’ve had probably more rain at the facility than we’ve had as long as I’ve been here, which is many, many years. The field has taken a significant hit all week, and we’ve been working with a weather consultant get as much up to date information as possible. We had information last night that there was going to be a break in the storm. And because of that we wanted to use that opportunity to help dry out the field. Unfortunately we were wrong on the amount of rain, and we got about a third of an inch of rain last night. We did not have the tarp on the field. We got here this morning, the infield was under water, and we did everything possible starting at 7 a.m. to get the field ready for tonight. Our grounds crew worked tirelessly to get the field ready and unfortunately, after we met with the managers and the umpires it was deemed that the field was not going to be ready to play on tonight.”
“It was very soft,” Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon told reporters “That’s probably the worst conditions I’ve seen in all my years of baseball. It was not safe for the players. It was a safety issue more than anything. I think they made the right decision.”
No date for the makeup game had been set.
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