Here’s news: Dodgers leading Giants, 4-0, when game is rained out

Rain, OK, maybe the desert gets an occasional shower. Big-time rain, kinda rare. Hail threatening to place dents in cars, almost otherworldly.

But it happened –- well, maybe cars weren’t exactly in danger –- on Friday, it all coming down hard and long enough for the Dodgers’ game in Scottsdale, Ariz., against their good buddies, the Giants, to be rained out.

They had one out in the top of the second, the Dodgers leading the evil Black and Orange, 4-0, when the game was called. This following three rain delays.

Rainouts were the norm in the Cactus League on Friday, the only possible good news for fans being that anyone with a ticket stub to a rained-out game could use it to purchase a ticket for $5 to take in Friday night’s U.S.-Mexico game in the World Baseball Classic at Chase Field in Phoenix.

The Dodgers are actually scheduled to play a split-squad game Friday night at home against the Reds, but, as they say, weather permitting.

The afternoon affair included hard rain, hail, heavy winds and even some lighting. Or exactly what every snowbird fleeing Chicago expects to find in Phoenix in March.

The Dodgers were able to get only two-thirds of an inning out of left-hander Ted Lilly before one of the early rain delays ended his day.

By then the Dodgers were already up 3-0. Barry Zito walked Mark Ellis, and after striking out Matt Kemp (now hitless in nine at-bats, with four strikeouts), Andre Ethier singled.

Juan Uribe and Yasiel Puig (hitting .444) followed with run-scoring base hits. Alex Castellanos add a ground-rule double and it was 3-0. The Dodgers added one more in the top of the second on a Justin Sellers triple and an error before the game was called.

ALSO:

A letter from camp on a rainy day in Arizona

Italy’s WBC upset of Mexico has a Dodgers blue tint

Chad Billingsley avoids knife, but ‘sword of Damocles’ remains