NEW YORK - Craig Stammen and the Washington Nationals really dampened the New York Yankees' day.
After waiting out a 51/2-hour rain delay at the start, Stammen earned his first major-league victory, Julian Tavarez provided key relief, and the last-place Nationals beat New York, 3-0, last night in the first game without a homer at the new Yankee Stadium.
Boosted by Ryan Zimmerman's three hits and a bunch of nifty plays, Washington posted its first two-game winning streak since taking three straight May 7-9. Behind Stammen (1-2), the Nationals became the last team in the majors to pitch a shutout this season.
Maybe it was the damp air, or perhaps it had more to do with Stammen's neat 61/3 innings, but nobody managed to clear the fences. There had been a whopping 119 home runs through 34 games at the majors' newest launching pad.
Scheduled to start at 1:05 p.m., the game did not begin until 6:31 p.m. A postponement here seemed unlikely because the teams shared only one mutual off-day the rest of the season for a possible makeup.
There is no official record of the longest rain delay in big-league history, but this certainly ranked high at 5 hours, 26 minutes. The start of a pennant-race game in 1999 between Cincinnati and Milwaukee was delayed 5 hours, 47 minutes.
Washington 100 110 000 – 3 8 0
New York 000 000 000 – 0 7 0
Washington AB R H BI Avg. New York AB R H BI Avg.
C.Guzman ss 5 1 3 0 .329 Gardner cf 3 0 1 0 .277
N.Johnson 1b 4 0 0 0 .306 Me.Cabrera cf 0 0 0 0 .286
Zimmerman 3b 5 2 3 1 .310 Damon lf 4 0 0 0 .281
Dunn dh 2 0 2 1 .265 Teixeira 1b 4 0 1 0 .283
Kearns rf 4 0 0 0 .196 A.Rodriguez 3b 4 0 0 0 .212
C.Patterson cf 4 0 0 0 .077 Cano 2b 4 0 2 0 .311
W.Harris lf 3 0 0 0 .217 Swisher rf 4 0 2 0 .244
Nieves c 2 0 0 1 .256 H.Matsui dh 4 0 1 0 .249
AHernandez 2b 4 0 0 0 .263 Cervelli c 2 0 0 0 .288
Totals 33 3 8 3 a-Posada ph-c 0 0 0 0 .282
