Red Sox arrive in New York after charter flight delay, game start pushed back

The Boston Red Sox touched down at LaGuardia Airport at 4:30 p.m. ET on Friday after a charter-flight delay that kept the team in Chicago well into the afternoon, a team spokesperson told The Athletic. The club arrived at Citi Field around 5 p.m., and Major League Baseball announced that the opening pitch for the series-opening game against the New York Mets would be moved from 7:15 p.m. to 7:50 p.m.

The Red Sox had completed a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox the previous day. Normally the team would depart Chicago a few hours after the game, but multiple technical issues with the chartered aircraft prevented an earlier departure. A Mets spokesperson said at 3 p.m. that the Red Sox had taken off and the game was still expected to be played, noting that players typically arrive at the ballpark about five hours before first pitch for pre-game routines.

This is the second recent charter-flight problem for Boston. On a June 25 trip from Denver, the team was unable to leave until early Friday morning and arrived in Boston around 5 a.m. ET, still managing to play and win a scheduled game against the New York Yankees that night. Since then, the Red Sox have won 11 of their last 13 games and sit 2½ games behind the third American League wild-card position.