KANSAS CITY -- Kyle Isbel ranged back toward the wall, fighting the pouring rain pounding his face and a slippery outfield begging for a scrambling fall.

Isbel kept his composure, even when the wind slightly whipped the ball to his right and over his head. He outstretched his glove, jumped up and secured the ball, and as he landed, slipped on the grass -- while holding on to make the catch and secure the out.

It was a rain-soaked robbery, and it helped the Royals steal a 2-1 rain-shortened victory over the Blue Jays in five innings following a 3-hour, 38-minute rain delay.

¡°That saves us, saves me, right there,¡± said Royals starter Cole Ragans, who allowed one run in five innings and technically threw his first career complete game.

With thunderstorms in the Kansas City forecast all afternoon and evening, the Royals and Blue Jays began Thursday¡¯s series finale at Kauffman Stadium with the hope that the bad weather would hold off long enough for a game to be played. But soon after the Royals jumped out to an early lead on Salvador Perez¡¯s two-run homer, the rain started in the second inning.

In the top of the sixth, Ragans prepared to head onto the field in a downpour, with water pooling in the infield and the outfield quickly becoming a slippery mess. Crew chief and first base umpire Chris Guccione waved the Kansas City grounds crew on the field to add more dirt to the infield. Misunderstanding, the grounds crew began pulling out the tarp.

Blue Jays manager John Schneider came out to push for the game to continue. Guccione wanted to get another half-inning in to give the Blue Jays another opportunity to hit.

There was some consideration, Guccione said, to pulling out the tarp earlier when the ran picked up, but the forecast showed heavy rain throughout the evening.

¡°What we had heard last on the field [was] that the rain could last up to four hours once it started going,¡± Guccione said. ¡°At that point, you want to try to get in as much baseball as you can.¡±

But after an unsuccessful attempt at making the field playable, the tarp got pulled on and a rain delay started at 2:45 p.m.

That¡¯s when the waiting began.

Around 4:30 p.m., the rain tapered off, but the grounds crew had a lot of work to do. Pulling the tarp off in a high-wind advisory was no small feat. Once they had it rolled up, they went to work on clearing the water and applying new dirt to the infield.

An hour later, Schneider and Royals manager Matt Quatraro came out to inspect the infield with the umpires.

¡°It was soft, and it was especially soft at short and third,¡± Quatraro said. ¡°So really it was just a matter of, ¡®Are we going to put guys out there on a field that we don't deem to be playable, or safely playable, with the possibility of more rain coming in the next 45 [minutes] to an hour?¡¯¡±

Schneider disagreed.

¡°It was too loose,¡± Schneider explained. ¡°I disagree with the fact that it¡¯s looser now than it was in the fifth inning, when Bo [Bichette] fielded a ball through a lake and threw it over to first. I was told that it was ¡®different.¡¯¡±

It took another hour of conversations and inspection before the game was called. Meanwhile, the Royals play a 1:10 p.m. ET series opener on Friday in Detroit, where the NFL Draft is being held this weekend.

¡°You get to a point where, in my eyes, you're having the same conversation multiple times,¡± Quatraro said, mentioning that he understood the Blue Jays¡¯ desire to continue playing. ¡°That's what was getting frustrating to me. It was just like, ¡®All right, let's make the decision one way or the other. Tell us to get out there and play, or tell us to go home.¡¯¡±

The game was called at 6:23 p.m. CT after one more inspection by the umpiring crew.

¡°In this situation, it was just the whole shortstop area, the whole third base area was so spongy and soft that I couldn¡¯t imagine Bo Bichette or Bobby Witt Jr. trying to field the ball to their left or right and planting and trying to make a successful throw,¡± Guccione said. ¡°That¡¯s not good for the game, and for sure, the safety of the players is the No. 1 priority. We want to protect those guys.¡±

Five hours and 11 minutes after Ragans threw his first pitch, the Royals escaped with another one-run victory and a series victory over the Blue Jays. Music blasted in the clubhouse as they quickly packed: There was a plane to catch to Detroit.

¡°It was a waiting game,¡± Isbel said. ¡°But coming out of here with a series win against a really good team, it's huge.¡±