Sunday's game between the Yankees and Mets at Citi Field was delayed nearly 90 minutes by rain. Yankees starting pitcher Freddy Garcia and the visiting team said they were caught off guard by short notice of the rain-delayed 2:30 p.m. start time. Garcia said the Yankee clubhouse was expecting a 4 p.m. start, but at 1:55 was told to be ready for first pitch at 2:30. "Nobody was ready," Garcia said. He went to Joe Girardi and pleaded for more time. Girardi told him, "Take your time." While he would not use the speeded-up start as an excuse for the Yankees' 10th-inning, 3-2 loss, Robinson Cano summed it up as a bad start to a bad day. "You could see Freddy was working out of there (the bullpen) late and you never see Freddy working out that late," Cano said. "But that's not an excuse. We lost the game. They beat us and we go to Cleveland." A Mets official who was in the room when both teams were notified said they were told the game would start at 2:30. That word went out at 1:40. According to both the Yankees and the Mets, the normal routine is that the weather is monitored by the umpires and the home team. They communicate possible start times with the visiting team through emails and calls exchanged between the teams' equipment managers, traveling secretaries and coaching staffs. Girardi went to the officials and Terry Collins and pleaded for more time. "Freddy just didn't have enough time. We had some messages and discussions about it, it didn't look like we were going to play until 4 or 5 and Freddy just needed some more time," Girardi said. "I went to the umpires and I went to Terry Collins and said, 'Our guy needs more time. I don't know what to tell you but he needs more time. He's not going to be ready by 2:30.' And they pushed it back a little bit."