The rain in Philadelphia Monday was not a surprise. The forecast looked bad all day, so when MLB announced that Game 3 of the World Series would be postponed about an hour before it was scheduled to start, the teams were ready to go with changes.
The Astros will keep Lance McCullers Jr. as their Game 3 starter. But they had not previously confirmed a starter for Game 4, which opened up an interesting choice for them: Go with Cristian Javier, who has yet to pitch in this series, or use the unexpected day off to bring back Game 1 starter Justin Verlander? They chose to go with the former: One, because Javier is a genuinely solid option, and two, because Verlander could use the extra day.
“It would probably be to his benefit,” Houston manager Dusty Baker said of getting that extra day off for Verlander.
