The Red Sox landed in New York at 4:30 p.m. ahead of a scheduled 7:15 p.m. game at Citi Field. First pitch was pushed back to 7:50. Caleb Bowlin / Getty Images
NEW YORK — The Boston Red Sox, set to begin their final series before the All-Star break in New York against the Mets on Friday night, finally landed at LaGuardia Airport at 4:30 p.m. ET after a lengthy travel delay, a team spokesman told The Athletic.
The team arrived at Citi Field around 5 p.m., the spokesman said, and MLB announced that first pitch would be delayed from 7:15 p.m to 7:50.
The Red Sox completed a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox on Thursday afternoon. Typically, the team would fly out a couple of hours after the game, but multiple issues with their chartered flight grounded them in Chicago, where they remained well into Friday afternoon. The Boston Globe first reported the news.
Around 3 p.m., a Mets spokesperson said the Red Sox had taken off and the game was still expected to be played. Players typically arrive at the field roughly five hours before first pitch for workouts and treatment.
This is the second time in a few weeks that issues with chartered flights have delayed the team’s travel. On a trip back from Denver on June 25, the Red Sox were unable to leave until the wee hours of the morning and arrived in Boston around 5 a.m. ET. They had a game scheduled that night against the New York Yankees and not only won the game but swept the Yankees in a four-game series that weekend.
Since that series against the Yankees, the Red Sox swept two of their following three series and are in the midst of their hottest stretch of the season, winning 11 of their past 13 games. They sit 2 1/2 games back of the third wild-card spot in the American League.
— Tim Britton contributed to this report.
Jul 10, 2026
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