DAYTONA BEACH — It was a picturesque, balmy Monday evening in Daytona Beach, seemingly perfect conditions for baseball with major playoff implications on the line. Yet, the Daytona Tortugas and the Palm Beach Cardinals never took the field.
That's because the field itself was deemed not suitable for play.
Team president Ryan Keur said the infield needed to be resodded following a four-game homestand from June 3-7. The new sod has not yet rooted down, according to Jeff Pilcher, owner of St. Johns Turf Care, which manages the facility grounds.
The Tortugas, who began the evening one game ahead of Lakeland in the Florida State League's North Division standings, will shift the final three-game series of the first half to Embry-Riddle's Sliwa Stadium. On Tuesday, Daytona will play a doubleheader against Palm Beach, a pair of seven-inning games beginning at 6 p.m. with a 30-minute intermission.
Keur attributes an uncharacteristically wet month of May to the field's condition. The Tortugas endured four consecutive rainouts between May 27-31, the longest stretch of postponements in Daytona Beach in more than nine years.
"I don't think, last year, we pulled the tarp until June," Keur said. "The field just continued to take a bigger and bigger beating, and the wear and tear really started to play on it."
Daytona played eight games in six days before the All-Star Break last week, winning just three of those contests. Yet, the Tortugas still have a magic number of 3 in order to close out the division as first-half champs.
Tortugas manager Ricky Gutierrez could not be reached for comment.
Keur hoped for a little home-field advantage to spur his team into the postseason. But the scheduled field maintenance hit a snag while the Tortugas were on the road.
Pilcher said the project was delayed due to a two-day high school showcase at the Jack on June 12-13. The two roughest patches, Keur said, are located near first base and in between second and third.
Despite watering and rolling the field each of the last three days in an attempt to accelerate the process, nothing has worked to this point.
"I hate to say it's a timing thing, but it's a short window," Pilcher said. "Baseball's always a short window. It just hasn't rooted. That's basically it."
Pilcher expects to have the field ready in time for the Tortugas' second-half opening series on Thursday. The Florida Fire Frogs arrive for a four-game set starting at 7:05 p.m. Thursday.