The 2022 World Series is scheduled to resume with Game 3 between the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies on Monday night in Philadelphia. The two clubs split Games 1 and 2 at Houston's Minute Maid Park and now the series, which has become a best-of-five, shifts to Citizens Bank Park. Here's how to watch Game 3.
Alas and alack, it appears the weather could interrupt Game 3. There is rain in the forecast throughout the evening and continuing into Tuesday morning. First pitch is scheduled for 8:03 p.m. ET and MLB has already met once to discuss the weather, according to USA Today. Officials are set to meet again at 5 p.m. ET and are hoping to make a determination on if the game will be played or not by 6:30.
Here's the hourly forecast via CBS News Philadelphia:
There is rain in the forecast through the night for Game 3. CBS News PhiladelphiaMLB makes all weather-related decisions in the postseason and the league's priority is playing an uninterrupted nine innings. MLB wants to avoiding starting the game, then force everyone to sit through a delay(s) later on. The league also prefers not to start game late at night, after half the country has gone to bed.
If the Astros and Phillies do play Game 3 on Monday, it could resemble Game 5 of the NLCS, when the Phillies and Padres started on time and the two teams played through rain most of the game, including heavy showers at times. There have been two weather-related postponements this postseason (Games 2 and 5 of the ALDS between the Yankees and Guardians).
Coincidentally enough, Philadelphia was the site of MLB's most infamous World Series weather quandary. Game 5 of the 2008 World Series was suspended due to rain in the middle of the sixth inning. The Rays had just tied the game 2-2 in the previous half-inning while the clubs played through a downpour. Afterward, then-commissioner Bud Selig declared all World Series game must be a full nine innings.
"I was not going to allow that to happen," Selig told the Associated Press when asked about the possibility of a rain-shortened World Series. "I have to use my judgment. The game would have been in a rain delay until weather conditions allowed us to continue. And that might have been 24 hours or 48 hours or who knows?"
Game 5 continued the next day and the Phillies clinched their first World Series championship since 1980 thanks to Pedro Feliz's seventh-inning RBI single. Whenever the Astros and Phillies play Game 3 of this year's World Series, righties Noah Syndergaard (10-10, 3.94 ERA) and Lance McCullers Jr. (4-2, 2.27 ERA) will be the starting pitchers.
