Rainout in New York Means a Call to Arms

Upon learning Saturday’s American League division series game against the Yankees was rained out, Manager Mike Scioscia summoned Bartolo Colon to his office and asked the Angel ace if he could start a rescheduled Game 4 tonight, on regular rest, on the day Colon was originally scheduled to start Game 5.

The answer might have surprised Scioscia and pitching coach Bud Black: Colon, his lower back feeling a bit stiff and his arm not quite 100%, said he wasn’t ready to go.

The Angels, who have a 2-1 edge in the best-of-five series and can clinch an AL championship series berth with one more win over the Yankees, will stick with left-hander Jarrod Washburn tonight, and the Yankees will stick with their original plan, going with right-hander Shawn Chacon instead of Game 1 starter Mike Mussina.

There’s a chance Colon might not be able to start Game 5, which, if necessary, would be played Monday night at Angel Stadium, but Saturday’s rainout went a long way toward washing away many of the Angels’ pitching concerns.

If Colon couldn’t go Monday, the Angels would have Game 2 starter John Lackey, who held the Yankees to two runs and five hits in 5 2/3 innings in Wednesday night’s 5-3 Angel victory, available on regular rest, and they still have hard-throwing rookie right-hander Ervin Santana in reserve.

Saturday’s rainout also gave Angel relievers Scot Shields and Kelvim Escobar, who each threw two innings in Friday night’s 11-7 Game 3 victory, an extra day of rest, so they’ll be available for multiple innings in Game 4.

Had Game 4 been played Saturday, Shields would have been available for one or two batters, at most, and Escobar would not have pitched.

The rainout was especially timely for Escobar, who was suffering from flulike symptoms Friday night and was so drained after pitching the seventh and eighth innings that he had to be revitalized with a bag of intravenous fluids.

“I didn’t know how bad Escobar was feeling until he told me after the eighth inning that he was wiped out,” Black said. “Adrenaline allowed him to be locked in for half an hour.”

Black said he was “not overly concerned” about Colon, who flew back to California on Saturday in preparation for Game 5. But Black acknowledged that the 21-game winner, who gave up four runs and eight hits in seven innings of a Game 1 loss Tuesday night, “didn’t come out of his last start feeling as well as he has in previous starts.”

Said Colon, through an interpreter: “The extra day will be good. I’ll be OK.”

The rainout helps both teams; the Yankees will have ace Randy Johnson, who was shelled for five runs and nine hits in three innings Friday night and is hungry for redemption, available in relief tonight or Monday, and a Yankee bullpen that threw six innings Friday night caught a breather.

“When you’re up against it like we are right now, we’ll look for a show of hands and take whatever help we can get,” Yankee Manager Joe Torre said. “We would pull out all the stops to win the game [tonight].”

But the consensus in rain-soaked and wind-swept Yankee Stadium Saturday was that the postponement helped the Angels more.

In addition to giving Shields and Escobar a day to recover, it allowed catcher Bengie Molina, who is batting .455 (five for 11) with three home runs and five runs batted in against the Yankees, to recuperate from a severely bruised left elbow, an injury suffered when Molina was hit by a Tom Gordon pitch and knocked out of Friday’s game in the seventh inning.

Scioscia said Molina “wouldn’t have played” Saturday, but he “should be able to play” tonight. Molina planned to play Saturday but admitted, “It was going to be very, very difficult. You need your elbow for everything, to catch the ball, to swing the bat.... It’s very sore, it’s swollen, it’s stiff, it’s hurting, but it will be OK. This off day will help.”

Major League Baseball and the Fox network scheduled the first pitch for 7:55 p.m. EDT tonight, and if the Yankees win and force Game 5, it would create a grueling travel itinerary for the teams, who would fly all night and arrive in Southern California sometime around 5 a.m. PDT Monday for what would be the most important game of the season.

“If they started the game at midnight, we’d show up,” Scioscia said. “It’s not going to be pleasant. It’s unfortunate. But that’s what we have to do.”

In a statement e-mailed to Associated Press, Fox said deciding the start time “is the responsibility of MLB,” but added, “from a national television standpoint, it is certainly a marquee matchup between two major-market teams that warrants a prime-time audience.”

A day game today would have made much more sense from a travel standpoint, but Fox pays MLB billions for television rights and can virtually dictate game times.

“Is it unfair? In a sense, yes,” Yankee coach Joe Girardi said. “But I think we all know why we’re doing it that way, and that’s part of what makes the game tick. It’s what keeps salaries up.”

Added Torre: “It’s about TV.... You just accept whatever comes down, because if you start getting lost there, you’re going to wind up getting distracted and using it as an excuse, and this is no time for excuses.”

If there is a fifth game in Anaheim, it is possible the start of the AL championship series could be pushed back from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Times staff writer Bill Plaschke contributed to this report.