Rain Has Been a Central Theme in Red Sox Season

Last year, injuries were the central theme for the Red Sox. This year, aside from a bruising offense led by Adrian Gonzalez, it’s been the weather that has dominated much of the talk.

After Wednesday’s start-and-stop affair at Fenway Park, the Red Sox had endured 11 days this year with rain-related issues, including several others where they played through rain but without stoppages.

In the past 45 games, Boston’s games have seen more than 13 hours of rain delays. Two of the three postponements this year have come in that particularly wet stretch of the schedule.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t had too much luck with the weather this year,” third baseman Kevin Youkilis said following the rain-shortened 5-1 loss to the Padres on Wednesday, a game that featured four rain delays totaling two hours, 24 minutes.

“It really stinks to start a series and start the whole entire week and have great weather and then have something like this.”

The weather that day may have been one cause for the team’s lackluster play, although San Diego had to play in the same stuff. It would not be the first time that rain has leveled the playing field, so to speak. Bad weather can be the great equalizer at times.

Overall, Boston is 4-4 in games which have featured a delay, and 5-4 in the games which followed. Two of the three postponements will be made up as part of doubleheaders later in the year. Twin bills are always difficult to sweep.

Most notable was the May 4 loss at home to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, which combined nearly three hours of delays and 13 innings of baseball to end things just before 3 a.m. A day game the next day saw John Lackey struggle and the listless Sox fall, 11-0. There was also a two-hour, seven-minute delay two days after that and a three-hour, 27-minute wait in New York on June 9.

Wednesday’s affair made for a five-hour, 13-minute stretch from the time the first pitch was originally scheduled to the time it was finally called in the middle of the eighth inning.