By DAVE HOGG
FOX Sports Detroit
DETROIT -- What do the Sahara Desert and Comerica Park have in common?
It's not raining in either place ... and neither one is hosting major-league baseball.
Max Scherzer should have just thrown his first pitch, but since it is raining in Jackson, the powers-that-be at MLB have decided that we're not going to play any baseball. Local weather experts are saying that the rain isn't expected to start at Comerica until at least 9 p.m., and steady rain could hold off as long as 10.
They haven't even bothered to put the tarp on the field and pretend it is raining. Maybe Phil Coke could bring out his water hose and spray the fans so they could get the actual rain-delay experience.
On a normal night, they'd get as much baseball as possible in before the rain gets here, but MLB got burned last year during the postseason. The Tigers had two Justin Verlander starts ruined by rain, and another game in Texas was called early on a night where it didn't end up raining.
So a sold-out crowd is sitting watching ... well, nothing. There's no rain and no baseball. The only sign of activity is the TBS set in right-centerfield, where the pregame crew is valiantly trying to fill time in between commercials for Conan and The Big Bang Theory.
My guess? The game will be cancelled as soon as it starts raining, and Game 4 will be moved to Thursday afternoon. That could be an advantage for the Yankees in the short run -- they don't have to worry about losing CC Sabathia to a three-inning start -- but it also means that the Yankees ace would have no chance of pitching an improbable Game 7.
In the meantime, Comerica Park has plenty of hot dogs, nachos and beer, and the people who run local parking lots are thrilled with tonight's haul.
