Rainout squeezes Dodgers-Nats series

Long after the concourses emptied, the sky cleared up as the tarp still covered the field at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. Game 2 of the National League division series between the Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Dodgers still had to wait.

Major League Baseball postponed the Dodgers-Nationals game until 10:08 a.m. (PDT) Sunday (FS1) because it expected the rain that fell throughout the morning and afternoon to continue well into the night. Sunday’s forecast is 61 degrees and windy around game time.

Los Angeles leads the bestof-5 series 1-0 after a 4-3 victory Friday.

The teams were scheduled for a 4:08 p.m. (EDT) first pitch Saturday. But rain that intensified as Hurricane Matthew moved up the coast and a forecast of “100 percent certainty” for precipitation until at least 8 p.m. forced the decision, commissioner Rob Manfred said.

“We hate to cancel,” Manfred said. “We hate to make travel worse on the players than it was originally intended to be. But it just doesn’t look like we’re going to have a situation that would be safe for the players to play.”

Rain stopped falling around 4 p.m., about an hour after the decision was made to postpone the game. Rain was scheduled to resume in the early evening.

Left-hander Rich Hill (125, 2.12 ERA) will start for the Dodgers on Sunday against right-hander Tanner Roark (1610, 2.83). Manfred said the rest of the series will proceed as scheduled with Game 3 Monday at Dodger Stadium, as the rain wiped out the travel day to the West Coast.

AMERICAN LEAGUE: CLEVELAND AT BOSTON, 1 P.M. (TBS)

The Indians arrived in Boston with a 2-0 lead in their best-of-5 AL division series and a chance to eliminate the Red Sox on Sunday. If they do, it also will be the end for Boston designated hitter David Ortiz, who will retire after the season.

“Everybody had it mapped out in their head in spring training what we wanted to do, knowing that David was not going to be here next year,” Red Sox Game 3 starter Clay Buchholz said. “We reached the first goal, and that was to get in the playoffs and win the division. Second part of it has not worked out the first two games, but I don’t think there’s anybody on this team that’s more confident than David Ortiz about us moving forward.”

Buchholz (8-10, 4.78 ERA) will try to slow an Indians offense that has four homers in the series. He will face right-hander Josh Tomlin (13-9, 4.40), a former teammate from Angelina (Texas) Junior College.

“This is a pretty cool story,” Buchholz said. “We talked about it the other day. He’s one of my good buddies. … It’s a small world when it comes to that.”

AMERICAN LEAGUE: TEXAS AT TORONTO, 4:30 P.M. (TBS)

Aaron Sanchez was supposed to be in the Blue Jays’ bullpen by now. Instead, the All-Star right-hander will start Game 3 of the AL division series against the Rangers on Sunday, hoping to pitch Toronto into the AL Championship Series.

When the 24-year-old Sanchez cracked Toronto’s starting rotation after a solid performance in spring training, the team said it planned to move him to a relief role at some point to limit his workload. The thinking was a full season of starting would be too much for a pitcher whose previous career high was 133 1/3 innings.

But those plans went out the window when Sanchez pitched like an ace, earned an All-Star berth and led the AL with a 3.00 ERA.

Sanchez will oppose righthander Colby Lewis, who is 4-1 with a 2.38 ERA in nine career postseason games, as Texas tries to avoid being swept in the series after leading the AL with 95 victories.

Blue Jays left-hander Francisco Liriano sustained a concussion when he was struck in the back of the head by Carlos Gomez’s line drive in Toronto’s 5-3 win in Game 2 on Friday. He was removed from the Jays’ roster and replaced by right-hander Danny Barnes.