Jeremy Guthrie takes the mound for the Royals in Game 3 of the ALCS. (Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Heavy rains Monday did what the Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles Angels and Baltimore Orioles (so far) have failed to do — slow down the Kansas City Royals.
The Royals, who won their first six playoff games, and Orioles were rained out Monday in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. Game 3 has been rescheduled for a 7:07 p.m. CT start Tuesday.
The scheduled starting pitchers for Monday, Orioles left-hander Wei-Yin Chen and Royals right-hander Jeremy Guthrie, will start Tuesday.
Both managers were noncommittal on who would start Wednesday. Originally the Orioles were starting right-hander Miguel Gonzalez and the Royals were starting left-hander Jason Vargas.
However, both clubs could bring back the starters from the series opener Friday — Orioles right-hander Chris Tillman and Royals right-hander James Shields.
“Dave (Wallace, pitching coach) and I just talked about it a little bit,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said Monday regarding the Wednesday starter. “Chen will pitch tomorrow. After that we’ll probably have a better idea. So that’s about all I can tell you right now until Dave and I sit down and look at it a little bit.”
Showalter did say Tillman, who went 13-4 with a 3.34 ERA during the regular season, is “an option.”
Royals manager Ned Yost said there is a chance Shields would be bumped up for a Wednesday start.
“Shields can come back on five (days) or if we feel we want to give him an extra day, we can do that, too,” Yost said.
Yost said the decision to start Shields on Wednesday probably would not depend on whether the Royals win or lose Game 3.
“I’ll probably make my decision sometime tomorrow before the game,” Yost said.
So could the rainout be good for the Orioles, decelerating a hot Royals’ club?
“No,” Showalter answered and laughed. “I appreciate you throwing it out there. I think, if anything it’s great for the restaurant business in Kansas City. That’s about it.
“It’s fascinating this time of year because so many things happen that logically shouldn’t, but they do. And you go away from the norm. That’s why it’s fascinating to watch. I’ve got 96 reasons (regular-season victories) to be confident in our guys.”
Orioles left-handed reliever Andrew Miller said he sees no benefit for the Orioles that the Royals have to wait two days after winning the first two games of the series.
“We’ve played two close games that have gone their way,” Miller said. “We’ve had our chances. I feel like we’ve played well. We can stop their momentum with a win. They stopped ours. They came in and we hadn’t lost in a while. We’ve got to experience that. Now it’s our turn to give it to them. It’s not over. It’s the reason we play seven games.
“We’re certainly a confident group. We’ve won a lot of games. I like our chances. It’s certainly not the position we want to be in, but we’re confident in our abilities in what we want to do.”
Monday’s game was called about 3 1/2 hours before the schedule first pitch.
“What is different about this, we knew going in the chances of us playing today weren’t very high, so it’s definitely a little different coming to the park and (wondering) are you going to play,” Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said. “Then six o’clock comes around and you’ve got to wait two hours and then another half hour before it gets banged. Now it’s 4:15 and already banged, so we get to go home and have dinner and treat it like an off day.”
The Royals were eager to play before their home fans after taking the first two at Camden Yards.
“Whenever a team is hot, you definitely don’t want rainouts or off days,” Hosmer said. “It’s just mother nature. It’s all part of life. We couldn’t play today, so just come back tomorrow and try to take care of business.”
Royals closer Greg Holland, who saved the first two games, was ready to play.
“We’re a confident bunch,” Holland said. “Playing the way we are, I don’t think one day is going to make or break us. We’ve learned not to get ahead of ourselves, but focus on the game that day.
“It’s unfortunate that it’s rained out, but that’s part of baseball. I’ll take it as a chance to rest our legs, rest our bodies.”
The revamped ALCS schedule has the fourth game scheduled for Wednesday, a 3:07 p.m. CT start. If Game 5 is necessary, it would start at 3:07 p.m. Thursday. Those next three games are at Kauffman Stadium.
