BREAKING NEWS: The head coach of the Detroit Tigers has terminated his employment with the team following a background debate with management over…

From start to finish, the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees played Sunday’s game in a steady downpour.

Batters wiped off their bats with towels, pitchers wiped their throwing hands on their pants and the ground crew poured bags of absorbent dirt in an attempt to keep the field playable.

The Tigers lost the battle in the rain to the Yankees, 5-2, in Sunday’s finale of the three-game sweep in the Bronx. Left-hander Tarik Skubal, the Tigers’ ace who owns a 1.90 ERA in seven starts, allowed two runs on six hits and no walks with 12 strikeouts in six innings, throwing 96 pitches.

The umpires halted the game before the bottom of the eighth inning, at 4:18 p.m., with the game officially called about an hour later.

The field became more and more unplayable,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch told reporters in New York. “It got to be really dangerous. Guys couldn’t run full speed.

There were puddles everywhere. We tried. everybody tried.

The grounds crew was amazing. Alan Porter, the crew chief, was awesome with how he communicated everything.

We tried our best to get the game in, but enough was enough at the end.

It’s a frustrating end, but probably the smart play given the conditions of the field.”

The dozen strikeouts were a career-high for Skubal, in the 82nd game of his MLB career.

The fourth-year starter became the youngest Tiger (at 27 years and 167 days) to record 12 strikeouts in a game since Max Scherzer did so (at 25 years, 307 days) on May 30, 2010, when he had 14 strikeouts against the Oakland Athletics.