Happ to start for Phillies after delay

DENVER - The snow in Colorado scrapped plans for Pedro Martinez's first postseason start in five years.

Game 3 of the Philadelphia-Colorado playoff series was postponed a day because of weather yesterday better suited for cross-country skiing. That prompted a pitching switch by the Phillies, with left-hander J.A. Happ going to the mound Sunday instead of the 37-year-old Martinez. The Rockies are sticking with Jason Hammel.

The Phillies holed up in their hotel yesterday with no plans of working out at the ballpark. The Rockies summoned their players for a 90-minute workout inside Coors Field.

"We just want to keep ourselves on somewhat of a schedule," manager Jim Tracy said.

Tracy suspected this might not be a night for baseball when even his dogs wanted to skip their morning walk. Major League Baseball agreed with Tracy's beagles, pushing back Game 3 of this NL division series to tonight and Game 4 to tomorrow.

The playoff is tied at one game each. Game 5, if necessary, will be played as scheduled Tuesday in Philadelphia, without a day off for travel.

With the day off yesterday, both teams could go back to Game 1 starters tomorrow, Ubaldo Jimenez for Colorado and Cliff Lee for Philadelphia.

Happ, a rookie, said Friday that he felt better after being knocked out of Game 1. He had entered in relief and took a hard liner off his left leg in the seventh inning.

Before the weather changed things, Martinez was set to make his first postseason start since he won Game 3 for Boston at St. Louis in the 2004 World Series.

A cold front moved into Denver overnight, dropping temperatures into the teens with record lows for the date. Coors Field was covered with a thin layer of snow and ice Saturday morning and flurries were expected to continue through the night.

The National Weather Service said the cold front packed more punch than expected and easily broke the record low for the date of 25 degrees set in 1905.