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CHICAGO (AP) — No fighting in this one. Just a lot of rain.
One night after a benches-clearing brawl led to five ejections, the Royals and White Sox were tied at 2 when Friday's game was suspended by rain heading into the ninth inning.
Managers Robin Ventura of the White Sox and Ned Yost of the Royals huddled with the umpires after the eighth, and then crew chief Tim Welke waved the players off the field.
The game was suspended after a 40-minute delay. It will be resumed on Saturday at 1:10 p.m. CT with the Royals batting in the top of the ninth. Saturday's originally scheduled game will begin when the suspended contest is over.
But the forecast also looks bad for Saturday, raising the question about when they might be able to resume play. The contingency plan is to play the rest of Friday's game on Sunday afternoon if Saturday is washed out.
Yost will have the heart of his tough bullpen intact when the game finally does resume.
"Kelvin (Herrera) or Wade (Davis) with the lead. It just depends on what happens in the top of the ninth," Yost said.
The first-pitch temperature was 44 degrees, and there were periods of rain throughout the night, intensifying in the sixth inning. Kansas City's infielders shielded themselves in the dugout during two pitching changes in the sixth.
The grounds crew worked on the field after every half-inning, but the rain never let up and the field was becoming unplayable when it was called.
Former White Sox farmhand Paulo Orlando had three hits for the Royals, who are 12-4 on the season.
Chicago had a scare in the third when White Sox starter Jose Quintana caught Alcides Escobar off first base. Quintana threw to Jose Abreu, who appeared to have Escobar in a rundown.
Abreu ran down Escobar and put the tag on for an out while Escobar was diving into second. Abreu got tangled with Escobar's leg and fell on his right side. Abreu was on the ground for a minute before getting up and taking smell salts from a team trainer.
He stayed in the game and had two hits.
"He landed on either the foot or the base on his ribs so it kind of knocked the wind out of him and it was cold," Ventura said. "I thought it was his wrist or something like that but it was cold when I got out there and so there was a lot of stuff going on. Once he got over that, you could tell he was fine."
Orlando doubled and scored on Escobar's single in the third. He also had a tiebreaking RBI single in the fifth.
The White Sox got on the board in the fourth. Alexei Ramirez reached second on Escobar's two-base throwing error and eventually scored on Tyler Flowers' groundout.
Chicago's Adam Eaton tripled and scored on Melky Cabrera's sacrifice fly in the seventh.
Quintana allowed seven hits in seven innings, bouncing back from a rough outing in his previous start. The left-hander was tagged for nine runs and 10 hits in four-plus innings of 9-1 loss at Detroit on Sunday.
Royals starter Danny Duffy pitched 5 1-3 innings and was charged with an unearned run and six hits.
"It felt good, felt like I was locating for the most part," Duffy said. "It was kind of slippery out there, but we ended up making it work. I was getting down through my pitches enough to really be effective."
UP NEXT
Royals: Edinson Volquez will try to continue his strong start in Saturday's game versus the White Sox. In his first three starts with the Royals, Volquez is 2-1 with a 1.99 ERA.
White Sox: John Danks is 7-1 with a 2.63 ERA in his career against the Royals.
FINNEGAN RETURNS
Before the game, the Royals recalled left-handed reliever Brandon Finnegan from Double-A Northwest Arkansas and optioned infielder Orlando Calizte to Triple-A Omaha.
Finnegan was the 17th overall pick in last year's draft. He had a 1.29 ERA in seven regular-season appearances with the Royals in 2014, and then went 1-1 with a 10.50 ERA in seven postseason games.
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