Major League Baseball

NLCS Game 3 resumes after 3 1-2-hour rain delay

Published Oct. 18, 2012 3:31 a.m. ET

foxsports

Game 3 of the NL championship series resumed Wednesday night after a 31/2-hour rain delay with the St. Louis Cardinals leading the San Francisco Giants 3-1 in the seventh inning.

There were puddles on the warning track when play restarted and the temperature was 57 degrees, down 8 degrees from the first pitch.

During the delay, Game 4 of the AL championship series between the New York Yankees and Tigers in Detroit was postponed because of bad weather in the area. Comerica Park was still dry when the game was called.

Three games have been delayed this postseason. Two games between the Yankees and Orioles in Baltimore began late because of inclement weather.

The game at Busch Stadium was stopped with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, just after the Giants lifted starter Matt Cain. Javier Lopez, on the verge of getting announced before the delay, was the San Francisco pitcher.

The Cardinals and Giants are tied at one game each.

The big winners in the delay were the beer vendors, by a single out. Alcohol sales are cut off after the seventh inning in all stadiums.

Matt Carpenter hit a two-run homer off Giants ace Matt Cain in the third inning. Carpenter came into the game after Cardinals star Carlos Beltran left after the first inning because of a strained left knee.

The rain intensified less than 10 minutes after the field was covered, chasing most fans who had remained in their seats up to that point. Spotters for the National Weather Service reported 60 mph winds in nearby St. Charles County.

A highlight of the delay was a Pac-Man style chase. Ushers pursued and finally apprehended a fan who jumped out of the stands to get a baseball near the warning track in left field, and then jutted in and out of aisles to elude several ushers who had been closing in.

The storm had been widely anticipated. Some forecasts called for a 70 percent chance of rain. Both managers fielded questions Tuesday and Wednesday about whether the probability of precipitation would affect their selection of the starting pitcher.

Before the game, managers Bruce Bochy and the Mike Matheny said weather was something they couldn't worry about. Kyle Lohse worked 5 2-3 innings for St. Louis and Cain was lifted after giving up a run-scoring groundout to Shane Robinson just before the umpires called for the tarpaulin.

"I've been caught before where you try to predict what's going to happen with the rain and started," Bochy said. "Just a couple years ago I started a pitcher thinking the same thing and it didn't rain for four or five innings. Then I put my starter in and then it started raining, and so it came back to bite me."

Matheny said rainy weather was "part of being in the Midwest."

"We get this quite a bit," Matheny said. "We understand that these guys do a good job of forecasting, but you never know for sure."

The tarp came out before the Giants could announce a replacement for Cain, although Javier Lopez was trotting in from the bullpen.