A rainout can wash away the best-laid plans

Remember little league, when you played once or twice a week and you couldn't wait for the games to roll around? Then you got rained out, and it was awful. Well, rainouts are awful for big-leaguers, too, but for different reasons.

We got rained/snowed out twice in a three-game series last week in Colorado. One night, it was 35 degrees at game time with a wind chill of 27. Because we are scheduled to visit the Rockies only once all season, they had to try to get in the games. But when it started snowing really hard in the second inning of the first game, the umpires bagged it.

The delays and postponements could have affected our team in a bad way. The postponement on a Wednesday night meant a doubleheader on Thursday. Our Wednesday starter, Al Leiter, could not have started on Thursday because he pitched one inning on Wednesday. Even though he didn't throw many pitches in the game, he had to throw a lot to get loose in the cold. He offered to start the second game of the doubleheader, but the coaches didn't think that would have been in anyone's best interest. Al was doing the right thing because he knows how bullpens can get blown out during doubleheaders. But if he would have hurt his back or tweaked his groin, he wouldn't have been much help.

As it worked out, the Thursday doubleheader also was washed out, and the two games were rescheduled. What does that mean? Well, it's simple. We'll lose one of our off-days in August and will end up having a stretch of 21 games in 20 days. We'll finish a seven-game road trip August 7 in Cincinnati. Then, instead of being off on August 8, we'll fly to Denver and play a doubleheader that day. Then we'll head home to open a series against the Diamondbacks the next day.

This scenario actually was the best we could have hoped for. We got snowed out early enough on Wednesday that we were able to get back to the hotel at a decent hour. Then the doubleheader was postponed early enough that we did not have to burn up our first-game starter, A.J. Burnett; he was ready to start the next day. And we were able to get into Philadelphia, site of our next series, at a decent hour. Had we played the doubleheader, we would not have arrived in Philly until about 5 a.m. ET for a game that night.

So, all things considered, having to go back to Denver for a doubleheader in August really isn't that bad, even if we lose an off-day.

Todd Jones is a reliever for the Marlins. E-mail him at tjones@sportingnews.com.

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