Joe Girardi said he never considered taking CC Sabathia out after the initial 30-minute rain delay. At the time, Sabathia had thrown 5 1/3 innings of perfect baseball.

His pitch count was so low that Girardi didn't think it was an issue to bring Sabathia back. Girardi had Sabathia throw some in the indoor batting cage the Yankees have near their dugout during the delay.

On the second delay, which was 14 minutes and came after the seventh inning, Girardi said he just looked at that as if the Yankees had a long scoring inning.

"The 14-minute rain delay is so short it was almost like he had a long inning," Girardi said. "But I didn't really want to go much over 100 pitches."

Sabathia pitched 102 pitches.

Girardi said he knew the first delay would only be 30 minutes. Girardi wouldn't give an amount of time it would have taken for Sabathia to not return to try to finish the perfect game.

Girardi said he flashbacked to David Cone's perfect game, which featured a rain delay but still rooted against the rain.

"Please, don't stop this game," Girardi said he thought. "You can't fight Mother Nature."