Is the Red Sox-Mets Apple TV Game Delayed? Why, and What is the New Start Time?

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The Red Sox-Mets Apple TV+ game has been delayed. Here is why first pitch was pushed back, the latest start-time update and what fans need to know.

The Boston Red Sox scrambled into Citi Field on Friday after a 17-hour flight delay out of Chicago pushed their series opener against the New York Mets to a later first pitch.

With Sonny Gray walking off a charter jet and toward the mound on the same afternoon, Boston’s rest and readiness became the central question hanging over a series the Red Sox need to keep their winning streak alive.

The Red Sox were supposed to leave Chicago’s Midway Airport at 9:45 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday, shortly after closing out a sweep of the Chicago White Sox. Instead, the charter sat grounded for close to 17 hours, according to Boston.com’s Colin McCarthy, who first reported the delay.

The team encountered multiple mechanical issues trying to get the plane back in the air, though no single cause was confirmed, according to the Boston Globe’s Tim Healey and Alex Speier. The flight finally lifted off around 3 p.m. ET Friday, landing at LaGuardia Airport in the late afternoon before the team bused to Citi Field.

Major League Baseball pushed first pitch back from its original 7:15 p.m. ET start to 7:50 p.m., a decision confirmed by the league and MLB.com’s Ian Browne. The game itself was never postponed or rescheduled, leaving both clubs to adjust their pregame routines on the fly rather than losing a date entirely.

Boston arrived with little margin for error. The Red Sox needed every minute of that extra half hour just to get players off the team bus, into uniform and stretched before facing a Mets team riding its own recent hot stretch.

Whitlock, Tolle Detail Red Sox Travel Ordeal

Whitlock, whose bullpen work has anchored Boston’s rotation depth all season, summed up the marathon delay in blunt terms.

“Definitely something I don’t think any of us have experienced that before. But hey, that’s travel nowadays,” Whitlock said, as quoted by SNY.

The right-hander’s shrug captured a clubhouse that had little choice but to wait it out on the tarmac, uncertain how long the mechanical fixes would take.

Rookie left-hander Payton Tolle found a lighter angle on the layover, describing the search for something to eat while the team waited for word on the plane.

“I was like, ‘We got any protein?’ ‘Not right now, we got donuts for you.’ That’s right up my alley though, so I don’t mind,” Tolle said, as quoted by “Foul Territory.”

Red Sox Pitching, Apple TV+ Broadcast Face Delay Fallout

Friday’s game was already circled as a marquee matchup, part of Apple’s July Friday Night Baseball schedule pairing Boston against Juan Soto and the Mets. The broadcast remains exclusive to Apple TV+, with no traditional television option, according to NESN’s coverage of the streaming setup.

The half-hour push in first pitch shifted pregame coverage on the stream but caused no other reported disruption. Fans tuning in through the Apple TV app still got the exclusive matchup, just later than planned.

The bigger unknown is what a compressed pregame routine does to both pitching staffs. Gray took the ball for Boston on typical rest despite the chaos, while the Red Sox arrive at Citi Field on a six-game winning streak that has pulled them into the thick of the American League wild-card race.

New York, by contrast, enters having won four of its last five games. Neither club adjusted its rotation plans because of the delay, but Boston’s bullpen depth later in the series could hinge on how quickly relievers recover from a night with far more sitting than sleeping.

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