NEW YORK — A message on the center-field jumbotron at Citi Field told part of the story: “Due to travel issues that the Red Sox encountered, first pitch of tonight’s game has been delayed to 7:50 p.m.”“Travel issues” was one way to put it.After a hellacious 24 hours that included two trips to the airport in Chicago and two separate mechanical issues with their chartered Delta plane, the Boston Red Sox finally arrived in Queens at rush hour on Friday for their three-game series against the New York Mets. The fact that they arrived less than three hours before a scheduled 7:15 p.m. first pitch delayed the start of the game by 35 minutes. The Red Sox have run into their fair share of adversity this season; this experience only added to it.“You spend 10 hours in an eight-foot tube with each other, you get closer,” said the ever-affable Payton Tolle, who was still in his street clothes as he spoke in the dugout after coming straight from the team bus. “So I think we’re just gonna we’re just going to keep playing the baseball that we’ve been playing. I’m sure there’s a T-shirt that comes out of this whole thing, but yeah it was an experience for sure.”To illustrate their ridiculous travel day, it makes sense to rewind to Thursday afternoon. The Red Sox had just completed a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox, making them winners in 11 of their past 13 games with sweeps in three of their past four series.A triumphant Red Sox club left Rate Field in Chicago around 6 p.m. local time and headed for Chicago Midway International Airport despite bad weather in the Chicago area. They boarded their Delta flight and initially thought their delay was due to weather. Soon they were informed about their first mechanical issue.“There was potential weather, so we started with a little bit of a delay just to take off,” said interim manager Chad Tracy, a veteran of brutal travel days as a minor-league manager for seven seasons. “When we went to take off, there was a mechanical issue with a tow cart pulling us out (to the runway). That turned into, I think, six-plus hours of sitting there waiting to see if we could get another plane.”Most major-league teams use Delta for their chartered flights. A handful of teams use United as their charter carrier. The Toronto Blue Jays, naturally, use Air Canada. Mechanical issues pop up throughout the season as they do with commercial flights, but the Red Sox have been particularly prone to them of late. The team had mechanical issues with their Delta flight leaving Denver on June 25 and didn’t arrive until 5 a.m. the next morning with a scheduled four-game series against the New York Yankees on tap. They swept that series and have been on a tear ever since.After a rough start to the season, Caleb Durbin has hit eight home runs since June 10. (John McCoy / Getty Images)But back in Chicago on Thursday night, as the hours chugged along, the Red Sox realized they might not be leaving anytime soon. As the clock crept toward midnight, team officials decided to try flying to New York on Friday morning instead. Having already checked out of the downtown Chicago hotel they’d stayed at this past week, head of team travel Mark Cacciatore scrambled, trying to rebook more than 50 hotel rooms for the team’s 26-man roster, plus coaches and support staff as well as NESN and WEEI broadcasters. On short notice, he was able to get enough rooms, albeit at two separate hotels. The Red Sox departed Midway around 12:30 a.m. and got back to their respective hotels and into bed around 2 a.m.“Give Catch a lot of credit,” Tracy said of Cacciatore. “He got a lot of people rooms on pretty much no notice, and they were close enough to each other where we coordinated buses in the morning and ended up getting to the airport.”By 10 a.m. the next morning, chartered buses picked up the Red Sox at their two hotels and headed back to Midway. They boarded their chartered Delta flight once again, with the same pilot and flight crew, only to find out shortly thereafter there was another issue: A lightbulb in the cockpit wasn’t working.For another four hours, the Red Sox sat on the runway at Midway in disbelief of the situation.“We tried to make light of the situation, so we had to have fun with it,” Tolle said. “But there was some frustration building.”Friday night starter Sonny Gray, who’s known for his meticulous schedule before starts, paced up and down the aisles vacillating between annoyance and amusement at his luck.“At one point we just looked at each other and started laughing because it was just ridiculous, like, ‘Wow, what’s going on?” Tolle said.Tolle had not been on the Denver flight three weeks ago because he was starting the first game of the Yankees series. Teams sometimes send their starter to fly ahead separately, especially if they’re facing a cross-country flight with no off day, as was the case three weeks ago. Given the Red Sox were playing in the afternoon in Chicago with a normally short flight, Gray didn’t fly ahead. Tolle could not have imagined starting against the Mets after the long travel Thursday into Friday.“Nobody else you’d rather have to start this baseball game than Sonny,” Tolle said. “It’s gonna take a dog factor. And Sonny’s got that.”Before finding out about the second delay, though, Tracy tried to lighten the mood for his club with some good news. Earlier in the morning, he’d gotten word from chief baseball officer Craig Breslow that center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, in the midst of a breakout year at the plate, had been named an American League All-Star replacement. Tracy had an idea to make the Rafaela announcement just as the team boarded.“That was very cool. It actually gave a little bit of lift to the previous 15 hours that we had gone through,” Tracy said. “The guys went crazy for him, so very well deserved.”“A lot of emotions,” Rafaela said. “I was happy, and then called my family. A couple tears in my eyes, just happiness.”The Red Sox relished the good news for a while, before they found out about their lightbulb-induced delay. They’d been provided bagels and donuts as they settled in for the flight, but as the second delay stretched on, more food was ordered for the hungry 20-and-30-somethings. Breakfast sandwiches and chicken wings helped carry them over.“I had like five donuts,” Tolle said. “I was like, ‘We got any protein?’”Finally, around 2 p.m. CT/3 p.m. ET, the issue was fixed and the Red Sox took off, cheering their much-delayed departure.In the meantime, Red Sox officials were coordinating with the Mets about the possibility of Friday’s game being delayed. Teams usually arrive at the field around 2 p.m. for a 7 p.m. game and the Red Sox weren’t expected to even arrive at the park until about 5 p.m. But neither side wanted to postpone the game and force a Saturday doubleheader.“Routine is kind of out the window today,” said bleary-eyed reliever Garrett Whitlock. “Throw it back to travel-ball days, where it’s like, you drive, show up wherever you’re going, show-and-go, get out there and play and have fun.”The second flight had also initially called for the Red Sox to land at Newark International Airport, but as the delay continued, the flight crew realized they needed to re-route to LaGuardia Airport, which is 2 1/2 miles from Citi Field.The Red Sox finally landed at LaGuardia around 4:30 p.m. ET and took buses directly to Citi Field rather than the team hotel in Manhattan. There was no time for that. They got to the park just after 5 p.m.Players hurried to the clubhouse, their equipment scattered about.Pregame meetings were truncated. Workouts scrapped.“It’s some adversity for us,” Rafaela said. “I think the one message I sent to the guys is that we have great momentum right now and that has to be our focus. Not about what we’ve been through, because it’s not gonna be the best every time. You have to break every mirror and then keep going and fight together as a team.”