Pirates- Yankees makeup is July 10

Thursday’s thunderstorm wiped out New York’s 3-1 lead in the third inning.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The New York Yankees lost a three-run inning when heavy rain and lightning caused their game against the Pirates to be washed out Thursday night, which will result in the Yankees making a return trip to Pittsburgh for a July 10 makeup game.

Until this series, the two teams had not met in Pittsburgh since the 1960 World Series, but they now will meet two different times there in the same season. The teams split the two games in this week’s weather-shortened series.

The Yankees led 3-1 in the top of the third when several nearby bolts of lightning and strong winds led the umpires to halt the game even before it began raining.

The rain stopped briefly about an hour into the delay only to resume, and the game was called after a delay of 2 hours, 31 minutes — after a series of nearby lightning strikes caused some fans to scurry from their upper-deck seats.

The Yankees have a makeup, two-stadium doubleheader today in New York against the Mets, which made the prospect of an extended delay and a late-night finish in Pittsburgh even less desirable.

New York, coming off a 10-0 victory Wednesday night in their first regular-season series in Pittsburgh, got extra-base hits from the first four batters to take a 3-0 lead in the first, but the statistics will not count. Johnny Damon, starting for the first time since Sunday because of a sore left arch, and Derek Jeter doubled ahead of Bobby Abreu’s triple high off the center-field wall and Alex Rodriguez’s double off Paul Maholm.

The Pirates came back in the bottom of the first with Freddy Sanchez’s double and Ryan Doumit’s run-scoring single.

The rainout means the Pirates wasted Maholm’s start at a time when they are down two starters to injury, with Ian Snell and Phil Dumatrait on the disabled list. Jimmy Barthmaier and John Van Benschoten will be called up from Triple-A Indianapolis to start the first two games of their three-game weekend series against Tampa Bay that begins tonight.