Storm systems throughout the country wreaked havoc on the baseball schedule, postponing six games Friday night and creating a weekend full of doubleheaders.

Hurricane Ike, a colossal storm nearly as big as Texas itself, began battering the Gulf Coast on Friday, a day after officials postponed the first two games of the weekend series in Houston between the Astros and Chicago Cubs.

Meanwhile, rainy weather throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic led to the postponement of games all the way from Baltimore to New York. Another storm wiped out the White Sox-Detroit Tigers game in Chicago.

It was the most major league postponements in one day since six games were wiped out on April 15, 2007.

A.L. highlights

Red Sox 7, Blue Jays 0: At Boston, Tim Wakefield pitched eight innings of shutout ball to stop Toronto. Boston is two games behind Tampa Bay in the East and leads Minnesota by six games in the wild-card race.

N.L. highlights

Dodgers 7, Rockies 2: At Denver, James Loney drove in three runs and surging Los Angeles beat Colorado to remain 3 1/2 games ahead of Arizona in the West.

Diamondbacks 3, Reds 2: At Phoenix, Brandon Webb tossed eight shutout innings to become the N.L.’s first 20-game winner as Arizona beat Cincinnati.

Pirates 10, Cardinals 2: At Pittsburgh, Nate McLouth had a career-high five RBIs to lead the Pirates past St. Louis. The Cardinals fell five games behind Milwaukee in the wild-card race.

Clearing the bases

Cardinals right-hander Chris Carpenter will miss the rest of the season because of continued weakness from a muscle strain in his pitching shoulder. … Arizona sent pitcher Micah Owings to the Reds to complete the August trade for slugger Adam Dunn.