Pirates 7, Nationals 1(4)

5/2/2008 8:29 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -Friday night's game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Nationals was delayed 25 minutes in the fourth inning when an electrical malfunction at Nationals Park caused lights along the left- and right-field lines to shut off.

The problem occurred after Ryan Zimmerman led off the bottom half with an infield single to third. The outage, which began at 8:56 p.m., primarily affected the four banks of lights closest to the left-field foul pole and two just beyond Washington's first-base dugout.

Scattered lights in other stanchions dimmed, and power was slowly restored to those bulbs.

Play was halted while the umpires huddled with Nationals Park operations staff, and both teams retired to their dugouts about 5 minutes into the delay. The game restarted after a 25-minute delay.

Pittsburgh was leading 7-1 when the game was halted.