Threat of rain causes postponement

Associated Press

DETROIT

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

Wednesday night’s game was rescheduled for today at 4:07 p.m., when Game 5 was originally slated to be played. Detroit leads the best-of-seven series 3-0.

The first pitch had been scheduled for 8:07 p.m., but shortly before then the crowd was informed of a delay. A radar forecast for the Detroit area was eventually posted on the scoreboard video screen, as if to explain to fans why there was no baseball despite what was still rather pleasant weather at the ballpark.

The postponement was announced after a delay of about 1 hour, 10 minutes.

A misty rain finally began about 15 minutes after the postponement was announced.

The Tigers are no strangers to rain in the playoffs. Last year, ace Justin Verlander had two starts cut short by bad weather — although both were on the road.

After Game 1 of the 2011 ALCS at Texas was delayed twice for a total of 1 hour, 50 minutes, Game 2 was called off well before the scheduled first pitch because of a forecast calling for more wet weather.

Then it didn’t rain that night.

New York was set to send ace CC Sabathia to the mound for Game 4 against Detroit right-hander Max Scherzer. Under the original schedule, there also was a chance for Sabathia to pitch a potential Game 7 on three days’ rest if the Yankees rallied in the series.

Jeter to have surgery

Derek Jeter will have surgery on his broken left ankle, and the Yankees say the star shortstop could need four to five months to completely recover.

The Yankees said Wednesday that Jeter will be operated on Saturday by Dr. Robert Anderson in Charlotte, N.C. The timetable the team announced means Jeter likely would be ready to return sometime between the start of spring training in mid-February and late spring training in mid-March.