The San Francisco Giants made a name for themselves last Wednesday as they were the first team since 1986 to win a protest filed with Major League Baseball. Because of their win, they will now get to resume a rain-shortened game against Chicago Cubs which the latter thought they had won.
Tuesday night's game at Wrigley Field ended after 4 1-2 innings. The Cubs were declared the winners by a 2-0 score. Now that the MLB Board has ruled out the game, it is now considered as suspended and will resume on Thursday at 4:05 p.m. CDT. The game will start with the Cubs batting in the bottom of the fifth.
During their game, a short rainstorm has caused a 4 ½ hour delay in the game when the ground crew was not able to properly and quickly. After the rain has stopped, the umpire considered the field as unplayable and had stopped the game at 1:16 a.m.
Under provisions of Official Baseball Rule 4.12 (a) (3) there a ''malfunction of a mechanical field device under control of the home club,'' and this was the basis of the rule by the MLB. It was a just decision as stated by Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer.
He said "The last thing you want is a playoff team feeling bitter about the result here. And obviously it was caused by our organization. It's a good outcome. Hopefully we win the game. We have a 2-0 lead and pick it up from there."
Hoyer also wanted to play a complete game against the Giants and he said that the weather was not as it's usual and that the ground crew was caught off guard with the sudden rain.
Giants President Larry Baer also released a statement about the results of the query. He said "We appreciate Major League Baseball's careful review of our protest that will allow last night's game to be continued tomorrow. We want to thank Commissioner Bud Selig, Commissioner-elect Rob Manfred, Executive Vice President for Baseball Operations Joe Torre and the Chicago Cubs organization for their cooperation throughout this process."
MLB also release an official statement regarding their investigation. "The Cubs' inability to deploy the tarp appropriately was caused by the failure to properly wrap and spool the tarp after its last use. As a result, the grounds keeping crew was unable to properly deploy the tarp after the rain worsened."
