Baseball gods shine on Red Sox in Game 3
Proper ruling of ground-rule double zaps Rays’ momentum in 13th inning
The Rays got unlucky and the Red Sox benefited in Game 3 of the American League Division Series last night.
There’s no arguing that.
Even the most loyal of Red Sox fans must admit that bizarre play in the top of the 13th inning was a gift from the baseball gods.
The rules were enforced fairly. The Rays lost a run they were surely going to score. The momentum of the game swung back to Boston’s favor. And in the bottom of the 13th, Christian Vazquez hit a two-run homer that sent the Red Sox home with a 6-4 walk-off win to put them within a game of ending the Rays’ season.
Now here’s the argument that Red Sox fans shouldn’t bother making today: the play didn’t matter.
Wrong.
From a purely mathematical standpoint, sure, give the Rays a run in the top of the 13th and move on to the bottom of the inning, when the Sox scored two, and two minus one is one, so the Red Sox win anyway.
That’d be fine and good if baseball wasn’t a sport played by humans with emotions in a century-old ballpark with 38,000 fans on their feet, screaming and hollering based on what they see on the field.
To score the go-ahead run in the 13th inning of a five-hour playoff game full of back-andforth momentum shifts, then find out the run doesn’t count because of an insane bounce is an event that’s going to have an impact on momentum.
“It’s just one of those things, if we score that run, it puts pressure on them, it helps us relax a little bit,” Rays third baseman Yandy Diaz said, according to the New York Times. “But obviously it changed a little bit once that play happened.”
There’s nothing wrong with admitting the Red Sox caught a break. And it takes nothing away from the fact that the Red Sox are playing tough-nosed baseball, the same brand they were playing in the first half of the season, when there was no deficit too large and no event too monumental for them not to overcome.
Last night, the Rays were charged with having to overcome such an event, and they didn’t. They lost the game fair and square. The Red Sox won, fair and square.
“It’s in the rule book,” home plate umpire Sam Holbrook said afterwards. “It’s a ground-rule double. There’s no discretion.”
With all the emotion flying back and forth at Fenway, the Rays looked like they had stolen the last of it in the top of the 13th, when Diaz hit a one-out single and was ready to run when Kevin Kiermaier blasted a Nick Pivetta slider into the right-field wall.
The ball bounced off the wall, ricocheted off Hunter Renfroe’s hip and then hopped over the low wall and into the Red Sox bullpen.
Before the ball left the field, Diaz was already rounding third base and surely on his way home to score. Kiermaier was almost certainly going to third. The momentum was all Tampa’s, and then the ball left the field of play.
At that point, it was clear: Diaz must stop at third for a ground-rule double. The goahead run wouldn’t count.
The MLB rulebook defines it simply: “If a fair ball not in flight is deflected by a fielder and then goes out of play, the award is two bases from the time of the pitch.”
That means Diaz had to stop at third, Kiermaier had to stop at second and the score stayed tied.
The umpires got together to review, manager Kevin Cash went out to argue and Kiermaier pleaded his case. But none of it mattered.
“There’s no, ‘he would have done this, would have done that,'” Holbrook said. “It’s just flat-out in the rule book. It’s a ground-rule double.”
It’s really that simple. The Rays were stunned, but they weren’t screwed.
“That’s just the rule,” Cash said. “That’s the way it goes. It was very unfortunate for us. I think it was fairly obvious that KK or Yandy was going to come around to score, but it didn’t go our way.”
And that’s OK. That’s sports. Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.
Sunday night, it went the Red Sox’ way.
Pivetta was a monster out of relief, throwing 67 brilliant pitches, his final one a 95-mph fastball above the zone to strike out Mike Zunino and end the Rays’ rally attempt.
The momentum on their side, Renfroe drew a one-out walk in the bottom of the 13th and then Vazquez hammered a two-run homer that ended the game and sent Fenway into a frenzy.
The Red Sox deserved the win, just as the Rays deserved to lose.
But don’t be petty and pretend the Red Sox didn’t get lucky. They got the bounce of a lifetime.
And they took advantage of it.