Suspended Game

Astros: Houston is 46-35 at the midpoint, not counting its suspended game against the Padres. It was 49-32 last season, when it won the NL Central for a second consecutive season.

South Carroll earned a winning return on a solid all-around effort last night, getting a second-half goal from Katie Gardner to upend Liberty, 2-1, and end a string of five successive losses to its neighborhood rival."

As Friday's 15-inning marathon was getting dangerously close to becoming a suspended game, Orioles pitching coach Mike Flanagan began looking around for Jeff Reboulet -- utility infielder and emergency pitcher. But Reboulet wasn't an option for a depleted bullpen since he had started the game at shortstop and been removed for a pinch hitter."I realized he had been used," Flanagan said, grinning.It's easy to joke when you're on the winning end of a game like that, one that lasted a club-record 5: 49 and would have been suspended if Rafael Palmeiro hadn't homered off Toronto's Bill Risley with two outs for a 7-4 victory.

One out away from deciding absolutely nothing, the Orioles achieved their most drawn-out win in team history this morning. Needing 15 innings and 5 hours, 49 minutes, they outlasted the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-4, when Rafael Palmeiro drove a two-out, three-run homer off reliever Bill Risley.Thirteen pitchers threw 495 pitches, the last one coming at 1: 25 a.m.The 35-38 Orioles received their biggest performance of the season from a much-derided bullpen that managed 10 shutout innings and one serious blowup between manager Ray Miller and Terry Mathews.

The Charleston Alley Cats scored seven runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to come from behind and beat the Delmarva Shorebirds, 9-3, in a Single-A South Atlantic League game in West Virginia last night.Trailing 3-2, the Alley Cats sent 11 batters to the plate in the eighth. Dave Guthrie had two singles in the inning, including a bases-loaded hit that scored three runs.Delmarva starter Brian Falkenborg allowed two runs and four hits through seven innings but failed to retire the first two batters in the eighth and took the loss.

A week after playing an 18-inning game, the Delmarva Shorebirds completed a suspended game that ended in the 17th.Danny Bravo scored both game-winning runs yesterday as the host Cape Fear Crocs swept the Single-A South Atlantic League doubleheader, 8-7 and 6-5.The Shorebirds rallied from a 7-1 deficit in the eighth to tie the first game, which went nine more.Baysox 7, Phillies 4: Jim Foster hit a two-run homer to break a 4-4 tie and lift visiting Bowie in the Double-A Eastern League.Pub Date: 8/18/97

The American League office, the Texas Rangers and the Orioles all were a little more relaxed yesterday after the issue of when to make up Monday's suspended game was finally resolved.Then the rains returned for the second game of yesterday's doubleheader and chaos reigned again.The teams and the league spent a day negotiating a way to avoid playing Monday's makeup game today. But with yesterday's rainout, the Rangers and Orioles will be doing just that."Usually, this is a fairly simple procedure," said Derek Irwin, the AL's director of finance and schedule maker after the teams had finally agreed to make up Monday's suspended game with a doubleheader yesterday.

Traditional baseball thinking dictates that won-lost record has a direct effect on home attendance.In the minor leagues, that is not necessarily true."

Howard High named Joe Thomas as its head varsity football coach Monday.Thomas, 30, replaces John Quinn who gave up the position after being named supervisor of science for the county school system after last season.Howard has had two straight highly successful seasons, including a county championship two years ago -- its first since 1975. It missed winning the county title by one game last season."It still hasn't sunk in yet that I'm the coach," said Thomas, a math teacher at Howard. "There's an awful lot of work to do in a little time."

Often the difference in the contenders and the pretenders in baseball is the ability to win the close games, especially the one-run games.No. 2 Old Mill (9-1) took two close games from No. 12 Chesapeake in Lake Shore yesterday to remain unbeaten in Anne Arundel County 4A League action.Ryan Wood's booming homer to lead off the bottom of the ninth, in the completion of a game suspended at Old Mill nearly three weeks ago, gave the Patriots a 7-6 victory and propelled a sweep of the Cougars (4-5)

PHILADELPHIA - The World Series will go on. It just might take awhile. Major League Baseball postponed the already suspended Game 5 of the 2008 Series for another day because of more rain and wind here, pushing the first pitch of the bottom of the sixth inning until 8:37 tonight, weather permitting. According to weather.com, the chance of rain in Philadelphia dips to 30 percent around game time tonight - compared with 100 percent for much of yesterday - but temperatures will be in the low 40s with winds 10 mph or higher.

Remembering April 28 ... or not Asked White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen before the resumption of the suspended game if he had any recollections of the April 28 game that was finished last night. He didn't. "The only thing I remember was Alexei Ramirez's hit to win [Sunday's] game," Guillen said. "That's a lot of vodka between that game [April 28] and [Sunday's] game." (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog)

1 If you can make it there : The lush greenery and hushed gallery at Wimbledon? Nah, give us the hard courts and loud jets and louder fans at the U.S. Open. (11 a.m., USA). 2 Playoff fever: The Phillies and Dodgers want to catch it. They play tonight, so maybe they can catch it from each other. (7 p.m., ESPN2). 3 Turn back the clock: Travel back in time - to April 28. Tonight at 6:05 at Camden Yards, the Orioles and White Sox pick up their suspended game in the 12th inning. 4 A fast pitch: No more softball in the Olympics?

News item: The Orioles are 6-1 (plus an incomplete suspended game) in the eight starts this season by Daniel Cabrera, who pitched a three-hit complete game Thursday night in Kansas City. My take: Can you believe that some idiot sports columnist wrote him off during spring training? Any fool can see the guy is bound for glory. News item: Top Ravens draft choice Joe Flacco says he's out to prove he's the team's best quarterback. My take: I hope he succeeds, but I'm sticking with my original prediction that Troy Smith will be the starter when the Ravens open the regular season against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Observations, opinions and musings from the week in major league baseball: When Monday's 3-3 tie between the Orioles and Chicago White Sox was suspended because of rain after the 11th inning, several interesting questions arose. And so did some ludicrous ones. Here are answers to them all. First, the game will resume in the 12th inning Aug. 25 at 6:05 p.m. That's an hour before the Orioles host the White Sox in a regularly scheduled contest. Since the Orioles don't revisit U.S. Cellular Field this season, the game finishes at Camden Yards with the White Sox as the home team.

Nothing was settled yesterday in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference for baseball. In fact, the league has gone from a two-way tie for first between Calvert Hall and Mount St. Joseph to a three-way tie with Archbishop Spalding joining the group. The first two teams split two games in Irvington, and Spalding also won to leave all three teams 8-2 in league play. No. 2 Calvert Hall took only one inning to win the completion of a March 24 suspended game, 8-7, ending the Gaels' 11-game winning streak.

Pikesville (15-0) topped visiting Dulaney, 9-2, in the Baltimore County badminton championship yesterday. Brian Grochal, Jared Scheff, Sarah Kahn and Jay Turakhai won their singles matches, while Rachel Blank and Erin Geller, Mike Guberman and Shawn Shapiro, David Brownstein and Carly Pitler, Ian Levy and Mike Soforenko, and Hyein Yoo and Prethi Gaddam took the doubles matches in convincing fashion. The win marks the Panthers' ninth title in 12 years, including a streak of three straight.

Yesterday Triple-A International League Columbus 6, Ottawa 5: Gabe Lopez scored on a sacrifice fly by Mike Vento in the bottom of the 17th to lift the Clippers (34-25) over the Lynx (29-27). The game - which lasted 4 hours, 56 minutes - was the longest in Lynx history, shattering the previous record of 4:25, according to The Ottawa Sun. Ottawa used seven pitchers. Double-A Eastern League Harrisburg 5, Bowie 3: Eric DuBose gave up all five runs in the first inning, as the Senators (26-29)

For the Liberty boys lacrosse team, it was worth the wait. One day after having its Class 2A-1A West region semifinal halted by lightning with 5:27 to play, the host Lions last night returned to finish the job, keeping upset-minded Francis Scott Key at bay long enough to preserve a 13-12 win. Key's Jeremy Ziegler scored the only goal last night, spinning around his defender and scoring low with 3:49 left. The Lions, however, then managed to effectively keep the ball away from the Eagles' offense, never giving them another solid look at the goal.

Astros: Houston is 46-35 at the midpoint, not counting its suspended game against the Padres. It was 49-32 last season, when it won the NL Central for a second consecutive season.