Farrell pleased with how his club dealt with rain
The game was one out away from being official in the bottom of the fifth inning, with Toronto leading 5-2 at the time. Aaron Laffey could probably have pitched with more urgency, but the rain came fast and furious. When umpire Jeff Nelson waved everyone off a bit dramatically, it was because of the surprise the rain came about 20 minutes sooner than expected.
"We get [our weather information] from a groundskeeper," manager John Farrell said. "That's why if you saw the reaction of Jeff Nelson, he had no idea that was coming. And that's why you saw the reaction, because we felt like once we started back up we had about 30 minutes, and it ended up being about 12."
Farrell was pleased with how quickly his team got on the field when it was go time. The two delays totaled two hours and three minutes, and there was a point where the Blue Jays were waved back on the field prematurely.
It's all part of the guessing game with the weather maps.
"We came back on a 10-minute notice on a couple of occasions, and that's not normal, but our guys were ready to go," Farrell said. "They kept saying, 'We're on the edge of this one band, and if it hits us, and glances by us we'll have a gap. But if it stays on us we're probably into a longer one.' So we're just kind of at the whim of the most recent update."
Farrell defended his decision to bring Laffey back out after the first delay, which went 58 minutes. Part of the reasoning was he was under the impression there'd be that 30-minute window. Laffey was done after the second delay, with 4 2/3 innings pitched.
"We bought time because [Jacoby] Ellsbury was the last hitter Laffey was going to face, left on left," Farrell said. "So [Brad] Lincoln was there for [Dustin] Pedroia, for [Cody] Ross, for [Mauro] Gomez and [Ryan] Lavarnway. We wanted to be sure that he had enough to be time to be ready."