Thunder sends players scurrying back to clubhouse

NEW YORK -- Sunday night's game between the Yankees and Red Sox ended approximately four hours after its scheduled start time -- not unusual for a game between the two rivals -- but Boston's 3-0 win was far from normal.

Though the 8:05 p.m. ET game was ultimately called at 12:10 a.m., the two teams played just one hour, 58 minutes of baseball, spending the other two hours, seven minutes sitting through three rain delays.

"Three rain delays, a fake one and two real ones," said Red Sox slugger David Ortiz. "What else can you do? Stick around see how things end up."

The start of the game was delayed 45 minutes because of the threat of thunder showers in the area, but no rain fell before the teams took the field for an 8:50 first pitch.

"It looked like we were going to get hit pretty hard around 8:15, and we didn't. Then it looked like it would be OK until 11:30, 11:45," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "Then it came earlier than we would have liked."

In the top of the sixth inning, though, the rain finally came, and play was suspended for approximately 37 minutes. The game resumed at about 11:20, but Yankees reliever Boone Logan only had time to record the final two outs of the inning before the storms came again and the game was called for good.

"It would be about a 20- to 30-minute rain delay, then you factor in the additional time to get the field ready to play," said Sox manager John Farrell. "That was really it. Pretty straightforward decision. Fact is, we got on the field for about less than five minutes and here it comes again, the skies open up."

Only about four minutes elapsed between the second and third rain delays, according to the Yankees.

"We were going to try to go as quick as we could," Girardi said. "That's why we went and played those two outs, but we got hit pretty quick."

The thunder rolled through the Bronx a few minutes after that, and that's when players from both teams knew their night was likely done.

"I heard some guys kind of buckled a little bit. I was inside and didn't hear [the thunder]," Girardi said. "All I know is my TV went out. That was my clue that the weather was pretty bad."

ESPN cameras caught Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner jumping into catcher Austin Romine's lap and showed plenty of similar reactions in the Red Sox's dugout./p>

"It kind of scared us all. Gardner jumped into my lap," Romine said, laughing. "But after that, we took off. We were out of there. We don't need to see that anymore."

As for Gardner, he'll likely be hearing from his teammates about his reaction in the dugout for at least one more day.

"That was the loudest thing I've ever seen, the brightest thing," Romine said. "It was daytime for a second. It kind of scared us all."